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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2018  with  funding  from 
Getty  Research  Institute 


https://archive.org/details/artworkoflouisctOOunse 


Of  this  book 

ten  copies  have  been  printed  upon 
parchment  and  four  hundred 
and  ninety-two  copies  have 
been  printed  upon  Japan 
paper  for  private 
distribution 


THE  ART  WORK 
OF 

LOUIS  C.  TIFFANY 


THE  ART  WORK 
OF 

LOUIS  C.  TIFFANY 


GARDEN  CITY  NEW  YORK 


DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 
MCMXIV 


COPYRIGHT,  I9I4 
BY  DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  CO. 


TO 

MY  CHILDREN 


FOREWORD 


FOREWORD 


This  volume  is  not  written  for  the  public,  but  for  the  children  of 
Louis  Comfort  Tiffany  and  at  their  request.  Much  concerning  their 
own  father  which  may  be  known  to  his  fellow  artists  or  to  workers 
in  various  fields  of  art,  or  to  persons  in  different  employments  and 
separate  ranks  of  life,  is  unknown  to  them.  No  reason  for  surprise 
in  this:  it  is  the  commonest  thing  in  the  world  to  find  that  the  last 
persons  to  be  informed  of  what  a  professional  man  has  achieved  in 
his  life  work  are  his  children.  For  the  former,  more  than  any  other 
man,  uses  his  home  as  a  rest  and  refuge  from  the  ideas  that  beset  him 
at  his  daily  task.  With  his  nearest  and  dearest  he  rarely  if  ever  “talks 
shop.”  What  more  natural,  then,  for  them  to  discover  with  something 
of  a  shock  that  if  anything  should  happen  to  their  father  they  would  be 
left  without  a  record  of  the  various  lines  of  endeavor  he  pursued? 

It  is  this  condition  confronting  them  which  caused  their  father  to 
listen  to  their  reproaches  and  overcome  his  natural  dislike  for  anything 
that  savors  of  self-seeking  and  agree  to  the  printing  of  a  book  which  is 
to  some  extent  a  biography  but  primarily  a  record. 

Sehor  Sorolla  has  painted  a  likeness  of  Louis  C.  Tiffany  with  the 
environment  of  the  latter’s  home  in  summer  about  him.  Brush  in 
hand,  he  sits  on  the  terrace  before  his  easel,  surrounded  by  masses  of 
his  favorite  flowers,  a  friendly  old  dog  by  his  side,  and  the  blue  reach 
of  one  of  Long  Island’s  land-locked  harbors  in  the  background. 
Painting  in  the  sunlight,  his  features  are  fixed  in  the  effort  to  apprehend 
truly  what  he  sees,  and,  having  understood,  to  make  the  selection, 


XV 


FOREWORD 


and,  having  made  the  selection,  to  get  that  out  of  his  mind  on  to  the 
canvas. 

In  the  same  fashion,  if  one  wishes  to  fix  in  print  the  character  and 
output  of  an  artist,  one  must  place  him  in  relation  to  his  environment. 
But  while  the  likeness  in  oils  is  that  of  a  man  at  a  given,  chosen 
moment,  the  likeness  in  a  memoir  has  to  take  four  decades  into  account 
and  show  the  workman  employed  with  many  other  activities  than  that 
of  painting  flowers.  The  environment  is  not  only  varied,  it  is  most 
complicated.  For  one  must  consider,  not  only  the  man’s  activities 
in  art,  but  the  conditions  under  which  art  appears  in  his  country  and 
lifetime. 

*  * 

* 

Given  a  young  man  with  a  character  of  his  own  and  an  original  cast 
of  mind,  and  it  is  inevitable  that  he  should  begin  by  criticizing  the 
work  of  his  elders,  noting  the  weak  spots,  exaggerating  them  perhaps, 
and  placing  himself  in  opposition.  Although  Louis  C.  Tiffany  is  the 
son  of  a  man  who  established  his  name  the  world  over  as  a  goldsmith 
and  jeweler,  his  earlier  years  were  devoted  to  painting,  not  to  crafts¬ 
manship.  One  perceives  in  him,  during  his  painter  years,  a  reaction 
against  the  commercial  element  in  the  business  Mr.  Charles  L.  Tiffany 
built  up.  Is  that  surprising? 

For  one  thing,  time  is  sure  to  bring  with  it  the  realization  that 
too  exclusive  a  belief  in  what  is  termed  the  fine  arts,  too  narrow  an 
estimate  of  the  world-wide  mystery  of  art  in  general,  produces  in 
artists  a  peculiar  desiccation  of  the  imagination.  We  call  it  sometimes 
“falling  into  a  rut,”  and  have  to  lament  its  presence  in  men  of  very 
high  attainments  after  we  obtain  a  comprehensive  view  of  their  life 
work.  In  the  case  of  the  son,  it  was  his  father’s  great  success  as  a 
business  man  which  enabled  him  to  see  the  world  and  revise  that  very 
natural  and  normal  error  which  causes  painters  and  sculptors  to  speak 
in  derogatory  terms  of  all  forms  of  art  that  are  not  termed  “fine,”  or, 
if  you  prefer,  “pure.”  Particularly  was  the  art  of  the  craftsmen  of 


XVI 


FOREWORD 


the  Orient  illuminating,  not  forgetting  such  Western  artists  as  Whistler, 
La  Farge,  and  Mempes,  who  felt  the  same  movement  about  the  same 
time.  Travel  in  Algiers,  Morocco,  Palestine,  not  to  speak  of  Persia, 
India,  China,  Japan,  undertaken  by  those  who  can  see  below  the 
surface,  must  give  a  wrench  to  many  prejudices  imbibed  from  art 
schools  and  academies  in  which  the  majority  of  men  are  blind  followers 
of  those  whose  eyes  never  see. 

No  one  can  study  the  primitives  and  the  artists  of  the  Renaissance 
in  Europe  without  perceiving  that  there  must  be  something  wrong 
in  the  conventions  under  which  most  of  our  painters  and  sculptors 
and  architects  have  been  vegetating,  something  wrong  in  their  ideas 
and  ideals,  which  may  have  been  fitting  for  other  epochs,  to  other 
religious,  political,  and  educational  formulas,  but  assuredly  do  not  suit 
the  conditions  as  they  exist  in  Europe  and  America  to-day. 

Even  among  painters  there  are  degrees  established;  even  in  the 
painter’s  gild  there  is  caste.  Thus  the  artist  in  oils  looks  down  on  him 
who  prefers  water  colors,  and  has  little  regard  for  pastelists!  These 
distinctions  and  involuntary  snobberies  in  the  branch  of  art  which 
attracts  the  majority  of  artists  would  be  purely  amusing  if  they  did  not 
offer  a  pathetic  side.  For  they  occasion  very  often  this  very  serious 
result:  Artists  who  can  never  rise  above  mediocrity  in  oil-painting  but 
have  a  charming  talent  in  water  colors  or  pastel,  devote  their  lives 
obstinately  to  the  vehicle  they  can  not  drive  well,  because  they  have 
been  allowed  to  think  that  to  work  with  any  other  thing  than  oils  will 
cause  them  to  “derogate  from  their  nobility.”  This  is  what  they 
learn  in  their  school  days;  this  is  a  feeling  they  discover  later  among 
painters.  Many  who  would  succeed  in  one  beautiful  craft  or  another 
are  obstinate  in  their  devotion  to  some  one  of  the  “fine”  arts. 

The  Ghirlandaios  of  Florence  received  their  name  of  “garland 
maker”  owing  to  the  proficiency  of  the  first  of  the  family  in  goldsmith 
work.  Nor  is  their  example  at  all  uncommon.  Many  painters  and 
sculptors  began  as  craftsmen.  The  latter  are  nearer  the  people,  for 

xvii 


FOREWORD 


they  fabricate  useful  objects  belonging  to  daily  life,  while  the  artist 
who  produces  objects  of  the  fine  arts,  so  called,  is  more  remote.  His 
work  usually  demands  on  the  part  of  the  observer  a  longer  education 
for  its  appreciation.  There  lies  a  gap  between  the  people  and  objects 
of  pure  art  which  forces  the  artist-painter  into  a  narrow  sphere  and  com¬ 
pels  him  to  seek  the  restricted  public  of  amateurs  and  connoisseurs. 

It  is  this  apparent  exclusiveness  and  aristocracy  in  the  fine  arts  which 
has  given  room  for  much  error  and  helped  impede  the  course  of  art  in 
modern  times.  The  inference  has  been  drawn  that  objects  of  art 
without  any  practical  end  in  themselves,  objects  without  direct  use¬ 
fulness,  are  necessarily  of  higher  value  than  such  commonplace  things 
as  tools,  utensils,  and  weapons,  table  ornaments  and  furniture,  objects 
used  as  personal  decorations.  These  last  are  regarded  as  non-esthetic 
and  therefore  inferior  to  things  of  pure  or  fine  art  like  a  symbolical 
picture,  a  heroic  statue,  a  church  window.  As  a  crowning  touch  to  this 
tendency  to  establish  a  system  of  caste  in  the  realm  of  esthetics  we  get 
the  cry  “art  for  art’s  sake”  along  with  some  of  the  most  childish  and 
insincere  grotesques  the  world  has  ever  seen. 

*  * 

* 

As  far  back  as  we  can  look  through  the  vistas  of  the  past  to  the 
beginnings  of  what  fairly  may  be  termed  art,  all  forms  were  originally 
useful.  The  ancestors  of  the  earliest  Europeans,  whoever  they  were, 
drew  and  carved  the  figures  of  animals  on  tusk  and  on  wall  of  cave,  in 
order  to  hypnotize  thereby  the  beasts  which  were  their  food  and  sup¬ 
plied  them  with  clothing  against  the  cold.  Early  Belgians  and  Britons 
may  have  taken — probably  did  take — some  esthetic  pleasure  in  the 
dark  blue  decorations  of  woad  laid  on  their  skins.  But  there  was  a 
meaning,  a  direct  use,  in  these  paintings  and  stainings  connected  either 
with  religious  beliefs  like  the  marks  made  on  their  faces  by  high-caste 
Hindoos  or  with  the  identification  of  persons.  These  traditional  deco¬ 
rations  still  survive  in  the  tattoo  marks  of  sailors.  Perhaps  they  were 

xviii 


FOREWORD 


a  primitive  blazonry  of  rank  and  precedence.  This  is  the  more  probable 
because  Polynesians  and  other  folk  on  a  primitive  plane  have  good 
and  useful  reasons  for  the  dots,  lines,  or  figures  stained  or  painted 
upon  face  and  body  or  tattooed  in  the  skin.  Our  Indians  paint  them¬ 
selves,  not  so  much  for  beauty — although  that  enters  into  it — as  for 
witchcraft,  as  we  may  term  their  stage  of  religion.  Designs  which 
we  are  surprised  to  recognize  as  singularly  original  and  excellent  in 
line,  proportions,  color,  carved  on  columns,  shields,  and  paddles  by 
New  Zealand  natives,  prove  of  the  greatest  use  to  their  owners. 

Is  it  not  of  use  to  wield  a  paddle  that  will  frighten  off  sharks  and 
help  the  fishing?  Could  one  ask  for  a  better  shield  than  one  so  carved 
and  painted  that  it  may  paralyze  the  beholder,  like  the  Medusa  head 
on  the  aegis  of  Pallas  Athene?  Since  among  moderns  of  our  stripe 
paintings  and  sculptures  also  are  frequently  valued  for  their  decorative 
effects  alone,  not  for  any  esthetic  contents  in  the  way  of  meaning  or 
symbolism  which  they  might  convey  to  the  initiated,  one  finds  it  very 
difficult  to  draw  the  line  and  establish  exactly  where  non-esthetic,  util¬ 
itarian  art  ends,  and  fine,  pure,  esthetic-only  art  begins. 

*  * 

* 

How  an  artist  arrives  at  the  production  of  a  work  of  art  will  always 
have  about  it  an  air  of  mystery.  Scarcely  are  we  justified  therefore  in 
blaming  our  forebears  because  a  similarity  in  sound  caused  them  to 
confuse  a  maisterie  or  handicraft  with  that  secret  ritual  of  certain 
Greeks  called  mysterion  which  was  practised  notably  at  Eleusis  by 
the  initiated.  The  words  are  so  alike,  to  begin  with,  though  derived 
from  different  languages!  To  the  simple  layman  the  art  of  a  trade 
or  handicraft  is  so  obscure,  so  hidden,  so  mysterious!  And  the  error 
grew  during  the  Middle  Ages  when  “mystery”  plays  were  given  by 
maisters  or  craftsmen,  and  under  the  influence  of  the  church  their  tenor 
was  of  things  supernatural  and  therefore  mysterious.  Mystery,  mais¬ 
terie — the  plot  thickened.  .  .  . 


XIX 


FOREWORD 


Nor  were  the  earlier  artists  behindhand  in  magnifying  their  office 
by  appeals  to  the  credulity  of  laymen.  By  shrouding  the  technical 
processes  of  the  several  arts  in  mystery  they  ran  a  race  with  the  priest¬ 
hood.  A  somewhat  closer  analogy  than  with  priests  lies  with  the 
alchemists,  whose  methods  and  materials  were  very  similar  to  those  of 
painters,  enamelers,  glass-makers.  Between  chemistry  and  painting 
the  connection  has  been  intimate  at  all  times  and  never  more  so  than 
at  present,  witness  the  obligations  to  science  of  the  plein-airists: — paint¬ 
ers  of  sunshine. 

From  the  Byzantine  seventh  century  down  to  seventeenth  century 
France  we  find  hand  books  used  by  artist-artisans — the  claviculae , 
the  schedulae ,  the  libri  diversarum  artium  full  of  the  spirit  of  Free 
Masonry,  the  spirit  of  the  gild,  the  “mystery”  of  a  sect  or  priesthood; 
and  there  are  frequent  signs  of  jealousy  of  the  secular  artist  shown  by 
the  teacher  of  religion. 

*  * 

* 

Indeed  with  the  best  intentions  and  frankest  mind  in  the  world,  an 
artist  cannot  teach  laymen  much  concerning  the  way  in  which  the 
object  of  art  has  birth,  for  the  artist  is  rarely  an  examiner  of  his  own 
mental  processes.  His  cast  of  mind  is  almost  always  the  opposite  to 
an  analytical  one.  We  see  that  it  takes  a  long  time  for  a  painter  or 
sculptor,  a  musician  or  actor  to  learn  the  rudiments  of  art  activity.  But 
that  does  not  tell  us  how,  when,  or  why  the  creative  act  occurs.  It 
merely  means  that  each  art  demands  more  or  less  faithfulness  in  practice, 
more  or  less  study  and  preparation,  industry  and  concentration,  labors 
which  all  workers  have  to  perform  whether  they  remain  pupils  and 
copyists,  or  rise  to  the  level  of  originators,  creators,  artists  of  mark. 

Undoubtedly  there  is  a  certain  degree  of  pleasure  in  such  an  expres¬ 
sion,  a  certain  element  of  desire  that  others  shall  be  pleased,  or  at 
any  rate  moved,  by  some  thrill  which  is  akin  to  pleasure.  Yet  it 
may  well  be  questioned  if  the  happiness  which  the  artist  desires  to  rouse 
in  others  bulks  largely  in  the  matter.  Altruism  is  not  very  potent.  Even 


XX 


FOREWORD 


the  selfish  pleasure  the  artist  feels  in  his  own  creative  act  may  be,  and 
in  fact  usually  is,  overrated.  It  seems  likelier  that  there  is  some  com¬ 
pelling  force  infinitely  bigger,  infinitely  subtler,  which  urges  man  onward 
whenever  the  environment  is  favorable.  And  that  force  naturally  shows 
itself  in  certain  individuals  who  by  nature  are  fitted  for  such  activities. 
The  force  may  seek  its  vent  in  youth,  in  middle  or  in  old  age.  It  may 
confine  itself  to  one  line  of  endeavor  and  issue  by  one  narrow  outlet,  or 
it  may  appear  in  several,  as  we  find  to  be  the  case  in  such  many-sided 
men  as  Leonardo  da  Vinci  and  Michael  Angelo;  in  Albrecht  Diirer, 
El  Greco,  and  Benvenuto  Cellini. 

Still  another  element  is  the  desire  for  beauty.  But  here  we  meet 
the  difficulty  of  deciding  what  beauty  is,  owing  to  the  difference  of 
opinion  concerning  its  presence  or  absence  in  a  given  object,  or  even 
in  that  most  obvious  standard,  the  human  form.  There  is  the  fact 
that  from  time  to  time  men  appear — sometimes  singly,  sometimes  in 
groups — who  have  what  seems  a  vocation,  to  adopt  a  word  used 
by  the  religious,  their  call  being  to  express  emotion  or  thought  in 
movement  or  in  sounds  or  in  concrete  forms.  Their  coming  has 
the  look  of  such  activities  of  the  brain  as  characterize  inventors,  for 
which  we  have  no  satisfactory  explanation  at  present,  although  mankind 
must  have  reached  its  various  stages  by  the  exercise  of  this  faculty. 
Yes,  when  one  reflects  upon  it,  the  process  of  getting  subjective 
thoughts,  impressions,  feelings  out  of  one’s  mind  into  objective  reality, 
where  they  can  be  seen,  heard,  appreciated  by  others,  is  certainly  a 
marvellous  thing. 

Artists  must  always  have  supplied  some  deep-lying  need.  In  some 
epochs  they  seem  to  have  appeared  in  families  or  clans,  as  if  they 
served  not  so  much  individual  as  collective  expression  and  represented 
the  instinct  for  art  in  a  community  or  tribe.  In  North  America  there 
were  tribes  who  made  a  specialty  of  carved  and  ornamented  stone 
pipes.  Mexico,  Japan,  China  had  their  art  centres,  some  of  which 
linger  to  the  present  day,  where  a  specific  kind  of  pottery,  basket 


XXI 


FOREWORD 


work,  weave  was  fabricated  by  families.  But,  concerning  the  blossom¬ 
ing  of  very  marvellous  fine  art,  history  does  not  give  us  much  light  as 
to  the  wherefore  at  one  period  rather  than  the  why  at  another.  Epochs 
of  great  national  success  in  war,  or  expansion  in  colonies,  or  race 
movements,  or  great  calamity;  epochs  of  great  accumulated  wealth,  or 
the  entrance  from  outside  of  novel  ideas — these  have  been  supposed 
to  be  accompanied  or  followed  by  outbursts  of  art-production.  But 
history  contains  too  many  such  epochs  during  and  after  which  no 
artistic  revival  ensued.  Whatever  they  may  spin,  these  agreeable,  nay, 
fascinating  theorists!  we  are  really  quite  at  sea  regarding  the  kind  of 
people,  the  sort  of  country,  the  favorable  psychic  conditions,  when  and 
where  art  is  likely  to  bloom. 

The  arts  appear  to  rise  like  religions  in  the  most  unexpected  spots  and 
to  spring  from  obscure  roots.  Like  religions,  they  grow,  unobserved 
at  first,  among  humble  folk — very  conscious  yet  strangely  unselfcon¬ 
scious  folk — waxing  strong  in  the  face  of  ridicule  and  sometimes  at 
the  expense  of  “common  sense.” 

A  conspicuous  example  of  a  religion  continuing  in  defiance  of 
common  sense  is  the  pantheon  of  the  Greeks,  a  people  who  scarcely 
can  be  called  a  foolish  one.  Could  anything  imagined  be  more 
preposterous  than  the  actions  of  the  deities  to  whom  the  Athenians 
expected  that  Pericles,  Socrates,  Xenophon,  Plato  should  bow  with 
respect?  Communities  modeling  themselves  on  the  manners  and 
morals  of  those  gods  could  scarcely  exist. 

The  arts  have  been  often  nearly  as  preposterous  and  impossible  to 
dovetail  into  the  actual  life  of  the  people  among  which  they  flourished, 
from  the  heavy  nose  rings,  labrets,  leg  and  arm  rings  of  blacks  and 
Indians  to  the  modern  furniture  of  Germany.  Traditions  have  had  as 
powerful  effects  in  the  arts  as  in  religion.  Tradition  forced  the  world 
to  accept  with  rapture  what  passed  away  from  all  reasonable  connection 
with  the  actualities  of  the  present  long  ago.  To  take  an  example  a 
century  back:  the  so-called  “colonial”  architecture  in  America.  Could 

xx  ii 


FOREWORD 


anything  have  been  less  suited  to  the  climate  of  our  eastern  seaboard 
and  to  the  habits  of  the  early  nineteenth  century?  Yet  during  its 
prevalence  it  had  a  great  vogue;  of  late  years  it  is  enjoying  a  revival  in 
all  parts  of  Canada  and  the  United  States.  Or,  in  painting,  the  brown 
tones  conventionally  accepted  for  a  century  or  more  in  Italy,  France, 
Germany,  and  England  as  the  adequate  representation  of  figure  scenes 
and  landscape,  a  fashion  that  went  so  far  that  painters  did  not  dare  use 
green  pigments  to  reproduce  foliage — for  to  paint  leaves  green  was 
considered  vulgar! 

In  sculpture  the  last  three  centuries  actually  forbade  the  use  of 
colors!  These  aberrations  or  conventions  are  usually  the  result  of 
some  tyranny  exerted  over  the  field  of  esthetics  by  a  family  or  gild  of 
artists  forming  what  we  call  a  school.  Schools  are  still  possible  to-day 
where  religion  remains  authoritative  and  government  monarchic.  But 
in  the  greater  part  of  the  world  these  ideals  for  the  control  of  man  no 
longer  obtain,  or  else  they  linger  in  a  feeble  stage,  owing  their  prolonged 
existence  to  a  dislike  to  overturn  what  was  good  enough  for  ancestors. 

With  the  triumph  of  individuality  in  politics  and  religion,  ideas  as  to 
art  partake  of  the  general  discontent  and  unrest.  It  is  only  by  adapting 
the  word  “school  of  art”  to  a  very  different  thing  that  we  can  use  it  at 
all.  There  are  still  men  of  force  in  the  arts  who  are  imitated  by  pupils 
and  others.  Such  are  Claude  Monet,  landscape  and  flower  painter, 
Whistler  and  Sargent,  Rodin  the  sculptor.  How  imitation  of  these 
masters  sometimes  works  out  is  seen  among  followers  of  the  last  named. 
A  young  sculptor,  impressed  by  the  rude  blocks  of  marble  from  which 
certain  heads,  figures,  etc.,  by  Rodin  emerge,  and  by  his  fanciful  use 
of  the  “hand  of  god”  in  sculpture,  could  think  of  nothing  better  to  do 
than  in  all  seriousness  to  model,  emerging  from  a  mass  of  roughened 
marble,  a  solitary  hand — holding  a  cigarette! 

It  is  only  with  much  qualification  that  one  can  say  of  the  present  that 
a  “school  of  art”  exists. 

France  and  the  United  States,  having  destroyed  the  power  of  caste 

xxiii 


FOREWORD 


and  divorced  religion  from  the  State,  are  attempting  to  give  every 
person  the  same  opportunity.  The  final  result  should  be  to  raise  the 
status  of  the  writer  and  artist  as  typical  men  of  brains.  At  the  same 
time  the  tendency  must  be  toward  a  change  in  patrons,  or  those  who 
support  such  persons.  In  place  of  the  church,  the  king,  the  noble,  the 
millionaire,  we  have  the  broad  masses,  educated  as  well  as  the  forego¬ 
ing  on  the  whole,  if  not  better  than  they,  and  perhaps  less  open  to  preju¬ 
dices  and  conventions,  more  unsophisticated,  less  self-conscious,  readier 
to  give  ear  to  any  new  message  that  may  come  from  far  or  near. 

*  * 

* 

Art  for  the  people,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  past,  is  sure  to  be  freer 
from  tradition  than  that  of  the  bygone  schools  and  is  likely  to  have 
a  larger  element  of  the  useful.  In  other  words,  the  arts  and  crafts 
will  gain,  relatively  speaking,  on  the  fine  arts.  Already  are  legislative 
halls,  railway  stations,  and  opera  houses  liable  to  be  not  only  costlier 
but  more  beautiful  than  the  palaces  of  the  rich,  even  than  the  homes 
of  religion.  One  sees  a  definite  stream  setting  away  from  easel 
pictures  and  household  marbles  toward  as  beautiful  walls,  hangings, 
furniture,  table-silver  as  the  age  can  produce.  While  there  is  still  a 
great  and  increasing  demand  for  mural  painting,  owing  to  the  erection 
of  municipal  and  governmental  buildings  whose  architecture  demands 
such  adornments,  the  field  for  painters  has  broadened  out  so  tremen¬ 
dously  during  the  past  half  century  that  the  old  limitations  imposed  by 
artists  on  their  own  gild  have  gone  by  the  board.  As  to  those  who 
cling  to  the  view  that  art  lies  only  in  the  hands  of  painters  and  sculptors, 
their  patrons  are  tending  to  become  relatively  fewer  as  time  goes  on. 
No  profession  is  more  overcrowded.  Clients  do  not  keep  increasing; 
it  is  rather  the  other  way. 

*  * 

* 

Among  the  artists  who  have  led  the  way  in  this  change  there  is 
none  who  has  affected  the  taste  of  the  public  more  profoundly  than 


XXIV 


FOREWORD 


Louis  Comfort  Tiffany.  And  the  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  With  a 
tenacity  rarely  seen  among  those  who  when  young  have  been  subjected 
to  the  high-sounding  claims  of  academical  painters  he  has  refused  to 
limit  his  curiosity  as  an  artist  to  one  or  two  paths  in  art.  He  has 
followed  first  one  road,  then  another,  without  heeding  the  formulas  of 
his  fellows,  who  seem  always  singularly  enraged  if  one  of  the  fraternity 
deviates  from  the  unwritten  rules  of  the  gild.  Now  he  has  turned 
toward  stained  glass,  and  again  to  mosaic,  or  to  pottery,  or  to  enamels, 
or  else  to  tapestries  and  rugs,  or  at  another  time  to  jewelry.  He  has 
made  special  studies  of  decoration  and  lighting,  and,  though  for 
many  years  interested  in  floriculture,  he  has  given  much  attention  to 
landscape  architecture  and  house  building.  In  some  branches  he  has 
achieved  a  world-wide  reputation;  in  others  he  is  scarcely  known  to  the 
general  public,  in  still  others  he  has  been  so  content  to  pursue  the  study 
for  his  own  enjoyment  that  hardly  a  person  in  his  immediate  circle 
knows  what  he  has  achieved. 


XXV 


CONTENTS 


Foreword . 

. 

PAGE 

xi 

List  of  Illustrations  • 

. 

xxix 

Tiffany  the  Painter 

I 

3 

II 

Tiffany  the  Maker  of  Stained  Glass  • 

■  •  •  13 

Favrile  Glass  .... 

III 

.  .  23 

Enamels  and  Jewelry 

IV 

29 

Textiles  and  Hand  Stuffs 

V 

•  •  •  39 

A  Decorator  of  Interiors 

VI 

45 

A  Builder  of  Homes  •  .  • 

VII 

•  •  •  53 

As  Landscape  Architect 

VIII 

65 

Afterword . 

. 

73 

Index  . 

.  .  79 

LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Mr.  Tiffany  among  the  Flowers 

Painted  by  Sorolla,  1911 

PAINTINGS  BY 

A  Church  in  Morlaix,  Brittany  • 
Painted  in  1890 

Woodland . 

Painted  in  1894 

Spring . 

Painted  in  1898 

Algerian  Shops . 

Painted  in  1895 

The  Cobblers  at  Boufarick  • 

Painted  in  1888 

A  Street  Scene  in  Algiers 

Painted  in  1895 

The  Pool . 

Painted  in  1896 

The  Peacock . 

Painted  in  1903 

In  the  Fields  at  Irvington 

Painted  in  1879 

Market  Day  in  Nuremberg  • 

Painted  in  1897 

The  Studio . 

Painted  in  1896 


PAGE 

. Frontispiece 

MR.  TIFFANY 

. Facing  v 

. Facing  5 

. 6  A 

. 6  B 

. 6  c 

. .  6d 

. 8a 

. 8  B 

. 8  c 

. 8  D 

. IO  A 


XXIX 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 
Mother  and  Child . 

Painted  in  I  895 

Feeding  the  Flamingoes  ....... 

Painted  in  1885 

Peonies . 

Painted  in  1  883 


STAINED  GLASS 

Memorial  Window,  “  St.  Mark  ” . Facing 

The  first  Tiffany  Window  in  American  glass  in  combination  with  antique 
glass.  Placed  in  the  Episcopal  Church  in  Islip,  L.  I.,  in  1878 

Flower,  Fish  and  Fruit  Window . 

Made  for  Miss  M.  E.  Garrett,  of  Baltimore,  Md.,  in  1885,  for  transom 
in  dining  room 

Rose  Window . 

A  domestic  Mosaic  window  of  ornamental  and  conventional  floral  design 
made  in  1906  for  general  exhibition  purposes 

Medallion  Window . 

Executed  in  1892  for  general  exhibition  purposes  to  show  the  application 
of  Tiffany  Favrile  Glass  to  windows  of  thirteenth-century  design 

Medallion  Window . 

Designed  to  show  the  application  of  Tiffany  Favrile  Glass  to  windows  of 
thirteenth-century  design.  Placed  in  the  First  Church  of  Christ,  Fairfield, 
Conn.,  in  1 908 

The  Entombment  •  . 

Designed  for  the  World’s  Fair  at  Chicago  in  1893,  and  later  placed  in  the 
Cathedral  of  St.  John  the  Divine,  New  York  City 

By  the  Stream . 

A  domestic  figure  window  with  landscape  background.  Designed  in  1884 

The  Valiant  Woman . .  . 

Designed  and  executed  for  the  Church  of  the  Pilgrims,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y., 
in  1902 


PAGE 

1  o  B 

I  O  C 

1  O  D 

*5 

I  6  A 

I  6  B 

1 6  c 

1 6  D 

1  8  A 

I  8  B 

20  A 


XXX 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


Chancel  Window  at  St.  Michael  and  All  Angels’  Church, 


New  York  City . 20  b 

Designed  and  executed  in  1894 

The  Four  Seasons . 20  c 

Exhibited  at  London  and  Paris  in  1892 

The  Bathers . 22  a 

Designed  for  Capt.  J.  R.  Delamar  in  1912 

Library  Window . 22  b 


Placed  in  Chittenden  Library,  Yale  College,  in  1890 


FAVRILE  GLASS 

Iridescent  Lustre  Vase . 

Facing  25 

Seventy-second  Street  Collection 

Damascene  Vase . 

26  a 

Dark  Iridescent  Vase,  with  Iris  motif  .... 

26  B 

Decorated  Favrile  Jar . 

26  c 

Decorated  Favrile  Vase . 

26  D 

Peacock  Feather  Vase . 

28  A 

ENAMELS  AND  JEWELRY 

Jewel . 

Facing  31 

From  the  Walters  Collection 

Necklace . 

•  32A 

From  the  Walters  Collection 

Wide-mouthed  Bowl,  decorated  with  Red  Flowers  • 

.  32B 

Small  Round  Pot,  with  Flower  Decoration  • 

.  32c 

Jar,  decorated  with  Toadstools . 

.  32D 

Peacock  Lamp . 

•  34 A 

Designed  for  Mr.  Charles  A.  Gould 

Three-handled  cup,  decorated  with  Grape  Clusters  • 

.  34  B 

xxxi 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


TEXTILES  AND  STUFFS 

PAGE 

Ante-Pendium,  embroidered  in  Gold  and  studded  with  semi¬ 
precious  Stones . Facing  39 

Venetian  Lamp . 4OA 

Tapestries  and  Pottery . 4°  B 

Wall  Hanging;  Pine  Cone  motif . 42A 

Wall  Hanging  ;  with  Water  Lilies . 42  B 

INTERIOR  DECORATIONS 

Fireplace  and  Mantel ;  Seventy-second  Street  House  •  Facing  47 

Mosaic  Head  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea . Facing  48 

The  Tiffany  Chapel . Facing  49 

Exhibited  at  the  World’s  Fair  in  Chicago  in  1893.  Now  in  the  Cathedral 
of  St.  John  the  Divine,  New  York 

Veterans’  Room;  Seventh  Regiment  Armory . 50 a 

Fireplace  and  Mantel ;  Studio  of  the  Seventy-second  Street 

House . Facing  55 

An  Interesting  Corner  in  the  Bella  Apartment . 56  a 

Dining  Room  in  the  Bella  Apartment .  56  b 

Mr.  Tiffany’s  Original  Sketch  for  the  Seventy-second  Street 

House . Facing  57 

A  Mantel  and  Fireplace;  Seventy-second  Street  House  •  •  •  58 a 

A  Fireplace  ;  Laurelton  Hall . 60  a 

The  Veranda  ;  Laurelton  Hall . 60  b 

The  Court ;  Laurelton  Hall . 62  a 

The  Dining  Room  ;  Laurelton  Hall . 62  b 

The  Terrace  ;  Laurelton  Hall . *  Facing  67 

The  Fountain;  Laurelton  Hall . 68a 

Main  Entrance  and  Tower;  Laurelton  Hall  •  7° A 

Tower  and  Terrace;  Mrs.  Lusk’s  Residence . 70 b 


THE  ART  WORK 
OF 

LOUIS  C.  TIFFANY 


CHAPTER  I 


TIFFANY  THE  PAINTER 


CHAPTER  I 

TIFFANY  THE  PAINTER 


Louis  Comfort  Tiffany  was  born  with  a  golden  spoon  in  his  mouth, 
but  the  spoon  was  immediately  tucked  away  and  he  was  seldom  per¬ 
mitted  to  remember  its  existence.  His  father,  the  eminent  goldsmith 
and  jeweler  Charles  Lewis  Tiffany,  and  his  mother,  who  was  Harriet 
Olivia  Young  before  her  marriage,  did  not  believe  in  spoiling  children 
by  allowing  them  to  live  on  a  scale  such  as  their  fortune  warranted. 
Education  should  be  thorough,  but  luxuries  few,  and  spending  money 
curtailed.  Born  February  18th,  1848,  their  son  was  still  at  school  when 
the  Civil  War  was  fought,  but  like  many  other  school  boys  of  that 
period  we  can  imagine  how  he  deplored  the  fate  of  having  been  born 
too  late  to  take  any  part  in  the  contest.  Some  of  his  fellow  artists  in 
later  life  such  as  George  B.  Butler,  Elihu  Vedder,  and  Winslow  Homer 
had  been  to  the  war.  As  he  grew  up  he  felt  the  longing  for  expression 
which  indicates  the  coming  artist  and  usually  makes  him  cold  toward  a 
college  career,  so  that  at  the  age  when  a  youth  in  his  circumstances 
is  pretty  sure  to  be  at  the  university  he  was  haunting  the  studios  of 
George  Inness,  N.  A.,  and  Samuel  Colman,  N.  A.,  the  latter  one  of  the 
founders  and  first  presidents  of  that  Society  of  Painters  in  Water 
Colors  which  became  the  American  Water  Color  Society  and  also  one 
of  the  original  members  of  the  Society  of  American  Artists,  merged 
later  into  the  National  Academy  of  Design. 

George  Inness  was  a  man  peculiarly  fitted,  through  certain  sides  of 
his  character,  to  rouse  the  interest  of  a  pupil.  His  incisive,  out-spoken 

5 


TIFFANY  THE  PAINTER 


views  on  art  were  supplemented  by  a  stimulating  if  somewhat  chaotic 
philosophy  in  which  the  sublime  ideas  of  Swedenborg  took  a  prominent 
place.  I  remember  hours  passed  in  his  studio  in  the  old  University 
building  on  Washington  Square  when  he  would  stand  before  his  easel 
making  and  unmaking  a  picture  with  rapid  strokes  of  his  brush,  all 
the  while  pouring  forth  a  stream  of  talk  in  which,  unlike  that  of  other 
artists,  a  strong  religious  feeling  appeared  and  was  lost,  only  to  reappear 
again  like  the  white  streaks  which  tinge  a  river  below  the  cataract. 
Inness  in  1878  attempted  to  fix  some  of  these  fleeting  ideas  in  Harper's 
Monthly  when  he  wrote: 

“The  true  use  of  art  is,  first,  to  cultivate  the  artist’s  own  spiritual 
nature  and,  secondly,  to  enter  as  a  factor  in  general  civilization.  And 
the  increase  of  these  efforts  depends  on  the  purity  of  the  artist’s  motives 
in  the  pursuit  of  art.  Every  artist  who,  without  reference  to  external 
circumstances,  aims  truly  to  represent  the  ideas  and  emotions  which 
come  to  him  when  in  the  presence  of  nature  is  in  process  of  his  own 
spiritual  development  and  is  a  benefactor  of  his  race.  No  man  can 
attempt  the  reproduction  of  any  idea  within  him  from  a  pure  motive 
or  love  of  the  idea  itself  without  being  in  the  course  of  his  own  regen¬ 
eration.  The  difficulties  necessary  to  be  overcome  in  communicating 
the  substance  of  his  idea  (which  in  this  case,  is  feeling  or  emotion)  to 
the  end  that  the  idea  may  be  more  and  more  perfectly  conveyed  to 
others,  involve  the  exercise  of  his  intellectual  faculties;  and  soon  the 
discovery  is  made  that  the  moral  element  underlies  all,  that  unless  the 
moral  also  is  brought  into  play  the  intellectual  faculties  are  not  in 
condition  for  conveying  the  artistic  impulse  or  inspiration.  The  mind 
may,  indeed,  be  convinced  of  the  means  of  operation,  but  only  when 
the  moral  powers  have  been  cultivated  do  the  conditions  exist,  necessary 
to  the  transmission  of  the  artistic  inspiration  which  is  from  truth  and 
goodness  itself.  Of  course  no  man’s  motive  can  be  absolutely  pure  and 
single.  His  environment  affects  him.  But  the  true  artistic  impulse  is 
divine.” 


6 


3Him 


TIFFANY  THE  PAINTER 


And  again:  “Rivers,  streams,  the  rippling  brook,  the  hillside,  the 
sky,  clouds — all  things  we  see — will  convey  the  sentiment  of  the  highest 
art,  if  we  are  in  the  love  of  God  and  the  desire  of  truth.” 

Inness  did  not  give  instruction  in  painting;  his  way  was  to  criticise 
or  appreciate  the  work  of  a  young  artist  from  time  to  time.  Perhaps 
the  disquisitions  into  which  he  launched  were  sometimes  confusing, 
for  they  were  likely  to  carry  the  mind  of  the  learner  far  afield.  But  he 
had  a  good  deal  of  William  Morris  Hunt’s  inspiriting  quality.  He  set 
high  ideals  before  the  student.  He  was  a  colorist  and  as  such  could 
not  fail  to  appeal  to  Tiffany. 

Samuel  Colman  was  a  man  of  less  intense,  more  methodical  character, 
who  dealt  with  landscape  in  a  large  way.  There  was  more  of  the 
patient,  painstaking  teacher  in  him,  and  if  not  so  strong  a  colorist  as 
Inness,  if  he  did  not  have  the  latter’s  infinite  variety,  nor  his  power  to 
express  emotion  through  landscape,  if  he  lacked  the  picturesque  light 
and  shade  of  Inness  which  attracted  and  repelled  yet  always  kept  the 
attention,  still,  there  were  sterling  qualities  in  him  that  showed  them¬ 
selves  in  a  certain  nobility  of  work  within  narrower  lines.  The  odd  fact 
that  Samuel  Colman  came  of  a  Swedenborgian  family  and  Inness  was 
a  Swedenborgian  may  be  set  down  as  a  mere  coincidence.  Colman’s 
father  was  a  seller  of  books  and  engravings  in  New  York  where  his  son 
was  born  in  1832.  He  exhibited  for  the  first  time  in  1850  and  traveled 
in  Europe  during  1860-1862,  going  abroad  again  for  five  years  in  1870. 
Tuckerman  in  1867  wrote  of  him:  “The  delicacy  of  this  artist  con¬ 
trasts  strongly  and  perhaps  unprosperously  with  the  more  material 
attractions  of  our  popular  landscape  painters;  but  to  the  eye  of  refined 
taste,  to  the  quiet  lover  of  nature,  there  is  a  peculiar  charm  in  Colman’s 
style  which  sooner  or  later  will  be  widely  appreciated.”  The  justice  of 
this  appreciation  was  verified  some  years  ago  when  Mr.  Colman,  who 
had  retired  from  active  life  in  New  York  for  a  long  while,  held  a  sale  of 
his  pictures.  It  was  then  recognized  that  a  very  charming  talent  had 
lain  perdu.  He  founded  with  James  D.  Smillie  in  1867  the  water  color 

7 


TIFFANY  THE  PAINTER 


club  that  became  in  time  the  present  American  Water  Color  Society 
and  was  its  first  President. 

The  pupil  must  have  shared  this  master’s  love  of  water  color.  Indeed 
Isham,  an  excellent  judge  of  his  fellow  artists,  has  written  concerning 
him.  “There  was  much  of  Colman’s  love  of  warm,  pure  color  in 
his  paintings  in  transparent  wash  or  in  gouache  on  rough  straw-board,  of 
Italian  or  Mexican  scenes,  that  used  to  light  up  the  early  exhibitions  of 
the  Water  Color  Society,  the  firmness  of  outline  and  energy  of  drawing 
being  probably  the  result  of  French  training.” 

These  last  words  refer  to  a  third  artist  whom  Tiffany  admired  and 
visited,  Leon  Belly  of  Paris,  who,  like  Samuel  Colman,  was  a  landscapist 
who  traveled  in  northern  Africa,  Egypt,  and  Palestine  and  made  his 
mark.  Jules  Breton  in  Nos  Peintres  du  Si'ecle  says  he  painted  Egyptian 
scenes  “of  an  exact  sort  in  which,  however,  one  wished  for  more  emo¬ 
tion.  His  pictures  of  Palestine  impressed  me  more  favorably,  particu¬ 
larly  his  impressive  canvas  representing  the  Dead  Sea.”  And  in  the 
Salon  of  1867  he  notes  his  “superb  views  from  Africa.”  Like  Colman, 
the  arts  of  the  Orient  appealed  to  him  very  strongly  and  this  agreed  with 
Tiffany’s  nature.  Though  he  did  not  work  with  L.  Belly  he  did  study 
hard  under  Bailly,  a  thorough  teacher  of  drawing  who  lived  at  Passy 
and  took  particular  pains  with  the  young  American.  It  may  be  re¬ 
marked,  however,  that  neither  Belly’s,  Inness’s,  nor  Colman’s  work  was 
reflected  in  that  of  Tiffany.  He  went  his  own  way  after  the  modern 
fashion  in  art  which  seeks  to  encourage  individuality,  unlike  the  earlier 
traditions  of  schools  and  gilds  which  made  for  uniformity. 

In  1870  Tiffany  was  elected  to  the  Century  Club.  In  1871  he  was 
accepted  as  Associate  of  the  National  Academy  of  Design  and  in  the 
following  year  he  married  Miss  Mary  Woodbridge  Goddard.  He  was 
a  member  of  the  American  Water  Color  Society  and  for  many  years  a 
constant  contributor.  It  was  about  this  time  that  Tiffany  enraged  the 
“legitimate”  water  colorists  or  sticklers  for  “wash”  by  using  body 
color  freely.  Acrimonious  were  the  remarks  in  the  press  and  the 

8 


I 


' 


TIFFANY  THE  PAINTER 


studios  over  this  audacity.  Body  color  was  a  crime!  This  narrow¬ 
ness  exists  to-day,  although  it  is  shown  in  other  ways.  Not  only  must 
you  pray  like  your  neighbor,  but  you  must  use  the  same  pigments  in 
the  same  way.  If  not — out  you  go!  In  1877,  when  the  Society  of 
American  Artists  was  established  by  artists  who  felt  that  the  leaders  of 
the  National  Academy  were  too  narrow  in  their  views,  he  was  one  of 
the  founders  along  with  Inness,  Colman,  Wyatt  Eaton,  La  Farge,  Martin, 
and  Saint  Gaudens.  Three  years  later  his  election  as  National  Academ¬ 
ician  did  not  make  him  any  the  less  a  friend  of  the  new  Society.  The 
establishment  of  the  Architectural  League  found  him  equally  receptive. 

The  period  1870  to  1890  was  characterized  by  an  unusual  movement 
in  art  matters  by  no  means  confined  to  New  York,  a  movement  that 
showed  itself  by  the  foundation  of  societies  and  organizations  through 
which  it  was  hoped  to  enlist  the  interest  of  the  public.  The  National 
Sculpture  Society,  which  still  flourishes,  the  New  York  Etching  Club,  a 
band  of  gallant  but  perhaps  premature  pastellists,  and  the  New  York 
Society  of  Fine  Arts,  these  last  no  longer  of  this  world,  were  started 
at  that  time.  Tiffany  was  working  out  some  of  his  ideas  in  other 
mediums  than  oils  and  water  colors  even  then,  but  he  was  guided  by 
movements  indicated  by  such  organizations  for  the  encouragement 
of  the  narrower  “fine  arts.” 

In  the  early  seventies  we  find  Tiffany  in  Algiers  enchanted  with  the 
broad  masses  of  Moslem  architecture,  the  long  level  lines  of  mosques 
and  their  surrounding  buildings  cut  by  the  trunks  and  shadows  of 
palms.  Here  is  a  view  in  1874  called  “The  Pool”  which  is  typical  of 
the  strong  sunlight,  the  color,  the  contrasts  that  Decamps  loved  to 
reproduce.  At  the  same  time  we  find  him  catching  the  character  of 
individual  Orientals  as  in  “Cobblers  at  Boufarik”  (1888)  and  “Street 
Scene  in  Algiers,”  genre  pictures  from  the  Orient  in  which  one  feels 
the  colorist  as  well  as  the  painter  of  figures,  a  feeling  for  masses  of 
light  and  shade  as  well  as  a  sense  of  proportion  in  the  grouping  of 
human  figures  with  relation  to  the  background  of  architecture  or  land- 

9 


TIFFANY  THE  PAINTER 


scape.  On  the  other  hand  he  did  not,  for  all  his  experience  of  Europe 
and  Algiers,  disdain  the  home  field  or  domestic  genre.  “In  the  Fields 
at  Irvington”  (1879)  is  a  perfectly  natural,  unselfconscious  scene  from 
domestic  life  where  interest  centres  on  the  small  child  with  face 
turned  to  the  spectator,  the  other  three  faces  being  averted  or  concealed. 
This  charming  unpretentious  canvas  has  been  reproduced  here  in  colors, 
but  the  yellow  tone  is  a  little  too  prominent  in  the  print.  “Woodland” 
is  another  illustration  which  rather  inadequately  represents  Tiffany  in 
landscape.  “The  Studio,”  reproduced  here  in  colors,  has  a  musical 
quality  in  its  color  and  composition.  Note  the  upward  sweep  of  the 
curves  beginning  with  the  arm  of  the  half  clad  model  seated  on  the  floor 
rising  by  the  broad  fronds  of  a  potted  palm  to  the  highlights  on  sus¬ 
pended  lanterns.  “Peacock”  is  a  stronger  and  clearer  presentation  of 
the  same  sweeping  curves,  where  the  nude  model,  seated,  offers  through 
the  lines  of  legs,  torso,  neck  and  lifted  left  arm  the  harmonious  upward 
waves  which  culminate  in  the  neck  and  head  of  Juno’s  bird.  In  this  we 
have  more  distinctly  enunciated  a  bit  of  symbolism.  The  seated  figure 
may  be  called  Psyche.  With  the  peacock  as  the  symbol  of  worldliness 
and  sensuous  beauty,  being  a  bird  of  pride  supposed  to  lack  intellect 
and  soul,  we  may  contrast  the  butterfly  which  Psyche  holds  out  to 
the  peacock  as  the  traditional  symbol  of  immortality.  Psyche’s  face 
accentuates  the  contrast  between  the  superior  and  inferior.  Above  the 
bird’s  head  the  fruit-laden  branches  continue  the  sweeping  lines  and 
carry  the  eye  back  again  to  the  seated  figure.  “Peonies”  is  an  example 
of  Tiffany’s  power  of  painting  flowers  with  an  admirable  combination  of 
arrangement  and  orderly  disorder,  at  the  same  time  that  full  justice  is 
done  to  the  beautiful  rich  colors  of  blossoms  and  vase.  It  would  be 
easy  to  add  to  these  examples,  but  the  singular  variety  of  his  work  com¬ 
pels  one  to  call  a  halt. 

Tiffany’s  leaning  toward  the  Orient  was  recognized  by  his  election 
to  the  Imperial  Society  of  Fine  Arts  in  Tokio;  he  became  also  a  member 
of  the  Societe  Nationale  des  Beaux  Arts  in  Paris,  while  his  exhibits  at 

10 


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TIFFANY  THE  PAINTER 


the  Exposition  Internationale  at  Paris  in  i  goo  won  a  gold  medal  and  the 
title  of  Chevalier  of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  In  1903  Yale  University 
gave  him  the  honorary  degree  of  Master  of  Arts. 

During  the  earlier  period  of  his  life  we  find  Tiffany  a  student  with 
masters  of  landscape  but  extending  his  scope  into  landscape  with 
figures,  thence  to  pictures  in  which  the  figure  is  everything,  finally 
to  larger  decorative  work  where  figures  are  employed  with  flowers 
and  still-life  to  express  emotions  of  a  poetic  or  musical  kind  in  paint. 
The  colorist  in  him  becomes  an  ever  more  important  element  and 
prepares  the  way  for  those  creations  in  stained  glass  through  which  he 
has  become  known  far  beyond  the  borders  of  his  own  land.  And 
though  the  multiplicity  of  demands  on  his  time  occasioned  by  his 
labors  as  a  craftsman  tended  gradually  to  limit  his  work  in  painting 
and  water  colors,  he  has  never  renounced  easel  work  but  continues  to 
give  such  time  as  he  can  spare  to  his  brush  and  palette. 


11 


CHAPTER  II 

TIFFANY  THE  MAKER  OF 
STAINED  GLASS 


CHAPTER  II 

TIFFANY  THE  MAKER  OF  STAINED  GLASS 


During  his  travels  in  England,  France,  Germany,  and  Italy  it  could 
not  fail  to  strike  a  painter  possessed  of  a  feeling  for  color  that  modern 
stained  glass  as  produced  in  Europe  lacks  the  fundamental  quality 
which  separates  the  colored  glass  window  from  mosaic,  or  painting 
on  the  wall,  that  quality,  without  which  the  stained  glass  window  may 
be  said  scarcely  to  have  a  reason  for  existence.  It  may  be  argued  in 
extenuation  of  the  deplorable  coldness  of  this  glass  that  the  cloudy 
skies  of  northern  Europe,  the  dark  atmosphere  of  great  cities,  lead 
people  away  from  such  “dim  religious  light”  as  the  cathedrals  favored 
in  the  age  of  the  splendor  of  Gothic  architecture. 

Practical  reasons  may  well  have  caused  the  gradual  introduction  of 
lighter  tones,  especially  in  palaces,  gild  halls,  town  halls,  libraries,  and 
other  places  where  it  was  necessary  to  have  light  enough  for  reading. 
But  this  was  only  one  reason.  A  deeper-going  cause  was  the  rarity 
among  artists  of  the  appearance  of  the  color-sense,  something  that  ex¬ 
ists  or  does  not  exist  in  a  man,  something  that  seems  to  inhere  in  the 
eye  or  optic  nerves,  something  that  no  amount  of  teaching  and  expe¬ 
rience  in  painting  can  do  more  than  approximate.  Colorists  are  men 
apart.  At  one  period  they  suddenly  start  up  in  Holland  and  form  a 
great  art  epoch.  In  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  they  appear 
with  Delacroix  and  the  Barbizon  men  in  France.  But  always  they  are 
antagonized  and  decried  by  artists  and  critics  who  lack  the  gift,  and  see 
nature  in  outline  rather  than  in  color.  Being  in  the  majority,  the 

15 


TIFFANY  THE  MAKER  OF  STAINED  GLASS 


latter  persuade  the  public  that  color  does  not  count  for  much  when 
weighed  in  the  scale  against  form.  And  they  are  entirely  honest  and 
convinced  in  this  opinion.  Slowly,  however,  the  public  comes  to  see 
that  for  such  art-products  as  painting  the  most  important  ingredient  is 
color,  and  in  time  the  colorist  is  exalted. 

How  much  more  is  the  color  sense  vital  and  necessary  in  the  artist 
who  attempts  stained  glass! 

Consider  a  moment  the  difference  between  looking  at  a  painting  on 
a  solid  surface  darkened  still  further  by  the  paint,  and  looking  into  a 
material  in  which  color  is  fused,  this  material  so  placed  that  light  falls 
through  it! 

Coming  back  to  America  where  the  skies  and  atmosphere,  summer 
and  winter,  seem  to  ask  for  interiors  sheltering  the  eyes  from  an  excess 
of  brilliancy,  Tiffany  could  not  but  realize  that  here  was  a  branch  of 
art  neglected,  or  rather  badly  served,  in  Europe,  which  might  offer  new 
fields  of  delightful  work  to  the  new  world. 

The  first  windows  were  mattings,  lattices  of  wood  or  open-work  stone, 
skins,  or  slabs  of  ice  (under  the  Arctic  Circle),  horn,  thinly  wrought 
alabaster,  and  at  last  glass.  And  the  first  glass  we  may  imagine  as  a 
material  discovered  by  potters  in  search  of  glazing  to  make  their  pots 
impervious  to  water,  which  glaze,  built  up  by  hand  in  shapes  just  like 
clay,  and  then  subjected  to  the  heat  of  the  kiln,  formed  the  earliest 
vessels  of  glass.  That  the  Byzantines  had  glass  windows  on  a  small 
scale  is  pretty  certain,  but  window  glass  as  we  know  it  must  be  credited, 
not  to  the  people  of  the  Mediterranean,  but  to  those  of  northern  Europe. 
If  they  did  not  invent  the  use  of  colored  or  stained  ecclesiastical  glass, 
which,  apparently,  they  took  after  the  Crusades  from  the  expert  glass 
mosaic  artists  of  the  late  Greek  empire,  it  is  probable  that  they  did 
begin  the  use  of  glass  for  ordinary  windows,  pushed  by  a  climate  which, 
in  winter  at  least,  exacted  a  closed  room  lit  from  outside. 

Language  gives  us  a  clew. 

The  word  glass  belongs  to  the  Teutonic  languages  and  has  been  allied 

16 


TIFFANY  THE  MAKER  OF  STAINED  GLASS 

to  glow  and  glare,  as  if  it  meant  the  “shining”  thing.  But  the  Kelts, 
who  preceded  the  Teutons  in  Europe,  have  the  same  word  for  a  color. 
Irish  glas  means  gray  or  bluish  gray,  like  steel.  Welsh  glas  means 
“blue,  greenish  gray.”  Glaukos,  “shining”  is  a  close  parallel  in  Greek. 
A  similar  word  for  amber  among  the  Teutons  got  into  late  Latin  as 
“glesum.”  We  may  imagine  that  the  earliest  glass  imported  by  the 
Phoenicians  into  northern  Europe  was  a  kind  of  bottle  glass  in  gray 
and  blue  tones  and  was  called  the  “blue-gray”  stuff  by  the  Kelts,  who 
gave  the  word  to  the  Teutonic  tribes,  alternately  conquered  by  them  or 
their  conquerors  in  turn.  As  soon  as  glass  was  made  in  Europe  it 
would  be  natural  that  those  who  could  afford  the  luxury  would 
substitute  this  material  for  the  parchment  or  horn  used  by  primitive 
races  of  the  north  in  their  narrow  window  openings  to  let  in  the  light 
and  exclude  the  cold. 

Originally,  we  must  argue  by  analogy,  windows  or  the  gratings  in  the 
window  were  stopped  by  materials  which  allowed  some  light  to  filter 
through,  but  did  not  permit  those  inside  to  see  out.  Transparent  glass  is 
a  comparatively  late  invention.  When  stained  windows,  therefore,  came 
up  in  Europe  it  found  people  indifferent  because  unused  to  the  con¬ 
venience  of  transparent  panes.  The  heavy  leads  and  thick,  dark-toned 
panes  in  old  cathedrals,  like  those  of  Chartres,  Beauvais,  York,  etc., 
delighted  their  eyes  and  did  not  bother  them  by  reason  of  the  dimness 
of  the  light  that  fell  through.  This  is  a  point  which  should  be  remem¬ 
bered  by  those  who  study  old  and  modern  glass  windows.  There  was 
beauty  of  color  in  windows  before  clear  glass  panes,  transparent  as 
air,  so  much  as  existed  in  Europe. 

Cennino  Cennini,  who  was  living  in  Padua  about  1400,  gives  in  his 
Trattato  della  Pittura  directions  how  to  glue  sheets  of  paper  together  to 
obtain  a  piece  as  large  as  the  window,  “draw  your  figure  first  with 
charcoal,  then  you  will  fix  it  with  ink,  your  figure  being  completely 
shaded  as  if  you  were  drawing  it  on  a  panel.  Then  your  master  glass- 
worker  takes  this  drawing  and  spreads  it  on  a  table  or  board,  large  and 

17 


TIFFANY  THE  MAKER  OF  STAINED  GLASS 


flat,  and  according  as  he  wishes  to  color  the  draperies,  so  bit  by  bit  he 
cuts  the  glasses,  and  gives  you  a  paint  which  is  made  of  well-ground 
cuttings  of  copper,  and  with  this  paint  with  a  small  minever  brush, 
piece  by  piece,  you  paint  the  shadows  on  the  glass,  matching  the  folds 
together  and  the  other  parts  of  the  figure  according  as  the  master  has 
cut  the  pieces  and  laid  them  together;  and  with  this  paint  you  can 
always  shade — on  every  kind  of  glass.  Then  the  master,  before  joining 
the  pieces  together,  as  is  the  custom,  bakes  them  moderately  in  iron 
cases  on  hot  coals  and  then  joins  them  together.  *  *  *  There  is 

this  advantage,  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  paint  the  ground  color,  as 
glass  can  be  had  of  every  color.” 

Nowadays,  in  America  at  least,  much  greater  care  goes  to  the 
preparations  for  a  window.  A  color  sketch  for  composition  and 
the  distribution  of  colors  leads  to  the  grand  cartoon.  From  this  two 
transfers  are  made  on  paper.  One  is  kept  as  a  guide  for  the  artist 
who  arranges  the  leads  and  puts  the  glass  pieces  together.  The  other 
is  divided  on  the  lines  of  the  leads,  being  cut  into  separate  patterns 
which  are  arranged  on  a  glass  easel;  this  is  placed  against  a  strong  light. 
The  patterns  are  easily  removable.  Selecting  the  sheet  of  glass  which 
seems  to  hit  the  right  color  for  a  given  section  of  the  design,  the  artist 
removes  the  paper  pattern  at  that  point  from  the  easel  and  passes  the 
sheet  of  colored  glass  between  his  eyes  and  the  opening  left  by  the 
pattern  he  has  removed.  Marking  that  part  of  the  colored  sheet  which 
has  been  selected,  the  glassman  then  places  the  paper  pattern  upon  it 
and  cuts  round  its  edges  with  a  diamond.  The  piece  thus  shaped  is 
then  fixed  with  wax  to  the  glass  easel  whence  the  paper  pattern  has 
come.  Thus,  piece  by  piece,  glass  in  various  colors  and  shades  takes 
the  place  of  the  paper.  Changes  are  often  made.  If  a  color  will  not 
come  otherwise,  a  second  colored  piece  is  placed  over  or  under  the 
first  in  order  to  obtain  the  required  tint  or  tone;  this  is  called  plating 
or  “cased”  glass. 

The  leads  are  also  different  from  mediaeval  leads.  They  are  not  so 

18 


TIFFANY  THE  MAKER  OF  STAINED  GLASS 


heavy,  and  they  are  used  so  as  to  aid  rather  than  interfere  with  the  picture. 
Attempts  have  been  made  successfully  to  suppress  the  leads,  sometimes 
by  fusing  together  adjacent  edges  of  glass  patterns  or  even  by  arranging 
the  patterns  between  two  great  sheets  of  plate  glass,  the  transparent 
sheets  acting  as  supports  to  keep  the  window  from  buckling  and  the 
pieces  from  shifting  from  their  proper  order.  Beside  and  beyond  all 
these  and  other  mechanical  contrivances,  more  important  than  these,  is 
the  fact  that  we  have  a  far  wider  range  of  color  in  glass  than  did  the 
mediaeval  workmen. 

The  result  of  all  these  experiments  and  inventions  may  be  summed 
up  in  the  statement  that  modern  American  window  painters  can  use 
glass  as  a  painter  uses  his  colors,  lightening  or  darkening  his  work  at 
will.  By  the  employment  of  opalescent  glass  they  can  produce  such 
effects  of  marvellous  delicacy  as  Corot  achieved  beyond  all  other  oil 
painters  in  his  treatment  of  white  clouds  shot  with  tender  rosy  tints. 

As  early  as  1875  Mr.  Tiffany  was  at  work  on  inventions  which  tend 
to  minimize  the  use  of  enamels  not  only  for  draperies  but  for  flesh  tones. 
At  Thill’s  glasshouse  in  Brooklyn  he  succeeded  in  obtaining  some 
glass  which  could  be  used  for  draperies  without  further  painting  and 
firing.  But  it  was  not  till  1878  that  he  established  a  glass-making 
house  of  his  own.  Andrea  Boldini,  of  Venice,  who  represented  himself 
as  one  of  the  workers  in  the  Murano  factory  under  Dr.  Salviati,  was  in 
charge  of  the  furnaces.  This  house  burned  down,  as  did  a  second. 
From  about  1880  to  1893  Mr.  Tiffany  experimented  at  the  Heidt  glass¬ 
house  in  Brooklyn,  constantly  improving  upon  his  original  ideas  and 
learning  to  his  cost  that  it  would  be  useless  to  expect  to  make  really 
beautiful  windows  unless  he  could  control  furnaces  of  his  own  where 
his  ideas  would  be  carried  out  without  interference  from  those  who 
either  could  not  or  would  not  understand. 

Finally,  in  1893  a  glasshouse  was  established  at  Corona,  Long  Island, 
and  put  in  charge  of  Mr.  Arthur  J.  Nash,  a  practical  glass  manufacturer 
from  Stourbridge,  England,  who  superintended  the  building  of  the 

19 


TIFFANY  THE  MAKER  OF  STAINED  GLASS 


factory.  In  1902  the  title  of  the  factory  became  the  Tiffany  Furnaces. 
Although  once  destroyed  by  fire  this  establishment  remains  and 
flourishes. 

It  was  in  1878  that  Mr.  Tiffany  had  an  opportunity  to  put  his  ideas 
of  a  church  window  into  operation.  English  and  Continental  glass 
relied  for  effects  of  perspective,  light  and  shade  and  details  on  sur¬ 
face  paints  or  pigments  burned  or  fused  upon  the  glass,  after  the 
fashion  Cennino  Cennini  described  five  hundred  years  ago.  Starting 
from  the  principle  that  these  effects  ought  to  be  expressed  in  the 
substance  of  the  glass  itself,  he  sought  to  make  a  material  in  which 
colors  and  combinations  of  color,  hues,  shades,  tints  and  tones  should 
be  there  without  surface  treatment,  so  far  as  possible. 

“The  Four  Seasons,”  a  domestic  window  exhibited  in  Paris  and 
London,  illustrated  here,  was  wrought  in  glass  without  the  employment 
of  any  pigments. 

“The  Valiant  Woman”  was  executed  in  the  same  fashion  in  1902 
for  Mr.  T.  E.  Stillmann  and  placed  in  the  Church  of  the  Pilgrims, 
Brooklyn  Borough,  New  York  City.  It  is  a  double  window  in  which 
architectural  and  tree  motives  are  used  to  balance  the  composition,  and 
the  lead  lines  reinforce  the  main  outlines  of  the  figures.  The  only 
concession  to  enameling  is  found  in  the  faces  of  the  valiant  woman  and 
the  Orientals  gathered  in  admiration  before  the  terrace  on  which  she 
stands.  The  lower  squares  of  this  double  window  not  shown  here  are 
richly  colored  with  marble  tones  and  flower  decorations.  They  carry 
inscriptions: 

THE  WOMAN  THAT  FEARETH  THE  LORD,  SHE  SHALL  BE 
PRAISED.  GIVE  HER  OF  THE  FRUIT  OF  HER  HANDS 
AND  LET  HER  OWN  WORKS  PRAISE  HER  IN  THE  GATES. 

In  an  article  called  “American  Art  Supreme  in  Colored  Glass,” 
contributed  to  the  Forum  in  1893,  Mr.  Tiffany  deplores  the  fact  that 
while  “to-day  this  country  unquestionably  leads  the  world  in  the 
production  of  colored  glass  windows  of  artistic  value  and  decorative 


20 


TIFFANY  THE  MAKER  OF  STAINED  GLASS 


importance,”  yet  the  managers  of  the  World’s  Fair  at  Chicago  had  not 
made  provision  for  showing  American  windows.  “An  intelligent 
exhibition  would  have  aided  greatly  in  crushing  out  the  purely 
commercial  spirit  which  too  often  invades  this  field.”  In  this  paper 
Mr.  Tiffany  had  the  boldness  to  compare  modern  American  glass  with 
mediaeval  and  to  its  advantage.  “I  maintain  that  the  best  American 
colored  windows  are  superior  to  the  best  mediaeval  windows.” 

In  the  old  windows  the  folds  in  the  draperies  were  obtained  by 
placing  pieces  of  glass  of  the  same  color  but  of  various  shades  side  by 
side,  or  by  painting  the  shadows  upon  a  sheet  of  glass  with  a  brown 
enamel.  In  America  a  pot-metal  glass  is  forced  into  folds  and  wrinkles 
while  in  a  molten  condition;  these  folds  are  adaptable  to  many  forms  of 
drapery.  Such  glass  gives  the  effect  of  light  and  shade  in  draperies 
without  using  so  many  lead-lines  and  doing  away  altogether  with  paints 
and  enamels. 

“In  the  windows  of  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth,  and  fifteenth  centuries, 
for  example,  the  foliage  and  colors  were  produced  largely  by  means  of 
stains  and  enamels,  in  this  country  we  produce  foliage  by  introducing 
into  a  sheet  of  glass  while  molten,  other  pieces  of  glass  of  the  proper 
colors,  having  stems,  leaf  and  flower  forms.” 

Mr.  Tiffany  spoke  with  authority,  from  long  experience  and  after 
many  disappointments  in  men  and  materials.  The  next  seven  years 
were  crowded  with  interest.  Success  crowned  the  efforts  which  had 
extended  crescendo  for  at  least  two  decades.  At  the  Universal  of  1900  in 
Paris  he  took  the  Grand  Prize  and  was  decorated  Chevalier  of  the  Legion 
of  Honor. 

One  point  touched  upon  by  Mr.  Tiffany  should  not  be  overlooked. 
The  new  method  demands  much  more  thought  and  care  on  the  part  of 
the  window  designer.  He  can  not  turn  his  sketch  over  to  the  foreman 
and  expect  results  worthy  of  his  reputation.  He  has  to  superintend  every 
stage  of  the  work  just  as  carefully  and  with  the  same  zeal  as  during  the 
evolution  of  an  oil  painting.  For  as  in  painting  the  introduction  of  a 


21 


TIFFANY  THE  MAKER  OF  STAINED  GLASS 


color  in  one  part  of  the  canvas,  or  of  a  tint  or  tone,  has  its  blissful  or 
baneful  effect  upon  all  that  has  gone  before,  so  with  a  stained  glass 
window;  no  other  eyes  than  those  of  the  original  artist  can  tell  whether 
the  fresh  note  added  to  the  rest  is  the  right  or  the  wrong  one.  Infinite, 
endless  labor  makes  the  masterpiece. 

Three  lancet  openings  of  a  window  in  Christ  Church,  Fairfield,  Con¬ 
necticut,  consist  of  medallions  containing  religious  groups  set  in  an 
elaborate  system  of  interlaced  decoration.  The  subjects  of  the  medal¬ 
lions  are  Christ  as  infant,  with  the  doctors  in  the  temple,  exhorting, 
calling  the  children  to  him,  healing  the  sick,  raising  the  dead,  etc. 

A  decorative  cross  of  interlacing  lines  and  ribbons  set  against  rich  tiles 
belongs  to  igo8.  It  is  purely  secular  and  depends  for  its  effect  on  the 
deep  and  glowing  tones  as  much  as  on  the  original  design. 

A  sylvan  composition  of  two  girls  in  the  woods  plucking  flowers  by 
the  brink  of  a  stream  represents  windows  for  the  home. 

But  it  would  be  too  long  to  enumerate  the  windows  for  churches, 
public  buildings,  and  homes  which  have  issued  from  the  Tiffany  studios 
under  the  direction  of  Louis  C.  Tiffany.  American  glass  has  had  a 
distinguished  originator  and  forefighter  in  him.  He  has  had  to  contend 
against  the  tradition  in  the  Episcopal  Church  of  the  United  States  which 
looks  with  reverence  toward  the  Church  of  England,  whence  it  sprang. 
The  prejudices  of  clergymen  and  vestrymen  are  in  favor  of  British  glass 
for  windows,  notwithstanding  its  coldness  and  lack  of  character.  There 
is  no  reasoning  with  a  sentiment.  It  affects  our  church  architecture 
in  general  with  a  sameness  and  a  tameness  truly  deplorable. 


22 


- 


CHAPTER  III 


FAVRILE  GLASS 


\ 


CHAPTER  III 
FAVRILE  GLASS 


However,  it  was  not  by  the  way  of  stained  glass  windows  that 
Louis  C.  Tiffany  won  his  widest  fame.  His  protest  against  certain 
great  American  expositions  for  their  neglect  of  American  stained  win¬ 
dows  (published  in  the  Forum)  was  necessary,  because  the  managers 
of  such  fairs  declined  the  expense  of  preparing  suitable  halls  with 
day  and  night  lighting  such  as  are  needed  for  the  proper  exhibi¬ 
tion  of  stained  glass.  They  are  indeed  unwieldy  objects  to  exhibit. 
Not  so  the  small  glass  objects  for  the  drawing  room,  the  dining  table, 
the  boudoir.  Ancient  glass  of  Chinese,  Venetian,  Bohemian,  British 
make  has  made  the  circuit  of  the  world.  The  somewhat  mysterious  but 
once  very  famous  myrrhine  glassware,  under  the  Caesars,  left  nothing 
to  be  desired  in  the  admiration  of  classical  writers  or  the  sums  spent 
on  their  purchase  by  the  collectors  of  the  day. 

Tiffany,  as  we  have  seen,  experimented  in  various  glass  furnaces, 
and  finally  in  his  own,  upon  the  colored  glass  used  in  draperies  and 
shadows.  Much  pot-metal  of  very  glorious  color  could  never  find  a 
place  in  windows.  Stores  of  it  accumulated;  it  was  evident  that  an 
industry  pushed  so  far  ought  to  strive  to  lower  the  annual  deficit  by 
the  utilization  of  by-products,  just  like  any  other.  This  was  one  but 
by  no  means  the  only  reason  for  the  attention  he  turned  to  small 
glass  and  the  production  of  a  very  popular,  very  varied  and  beauti¬ 
ful  glass  of  novel  quality  which  received  the  title  favrile  as  a  name 
easily  spoken  and  readily  recalled,  the  root  being  faber. 

25 


FAVRILE  GLASS 


Favrile  is  distinguished  by  certain  remarkable  shapes  and  brilliant  or 
deeply  toned  colors,  usually  iridescent  like  the  wings  of  certain 
American  butterflies,  the  necks  of  pigeons  and  peacocks,  the  wing- 
covers  of  various  beetles.  Its  commonest  use  is  for  flower  vases  and 
table  decorations,  but  it  is  also  employed  for  plaques  on  the  wall  like 
the  decorative  glass  boards  that  Clement  Massier  makes  at  Golfe 
Juan,  pressing  them  into  low  reliefs  and  charging  them  with  flame- 
colored  glaze.  It  is  employed  in  mosaic  and  the  tiling  of  floors 
and  walls  and  more  recently  for  table  services  to  fill  the  role  usually 
allotted  to  chinaware.  Toilet  boxes,  trays,  bonbonnieres,  vanity, 
snuff  and  cigarette  boxes,  great  vases,  lamp  shades,  tea  sets,  what¬ 
nots — there  is  scarcely  a  field  into  which  favrile  has  not  entered 
with  success.  From  the  first  it  was  popular.  Though  in  the  matter 
of  stained  glass  windows  Tiffany  had  to  deplore  a  preference  among 
the  clergy  for  the  cold  and  dull  output  of  British  studios,  the  appeal 
made  to  the  people’s  love  of  color  was  not  misunderstood  when  it 
came  to  small  objects. 

Such  success  demonstrated  a  current  in  popular  taste  on  which 
other  glass  makers  were  eager  to  embark,  and  favrile  soon  received 
that  mark  of  honor  which  is  called  the  sincerest  flattery.  Bohemian 
glassware  appeared  in  the  American  market  copying  some  of  the 
forms  and  trying  to  imitate  some  of  the  colors  of  favrile,  while 
appealing  to  the  multitude  with  low  prices.  The  peacock-feather  de¬ 
sign  was  a  favorite.  But  the  colors  were  thin  and  flat  when  com¬ 
pared  with  Tiffany  pieces.  Better  results  were  obtained  in  Vienna 
where  one  maker,  analyzing  the  ware  and  following  closely  Tiffany’s 
models,  produced  copies  of  the  original  pieces  not  without  success. 
But  he  found  that  the  way  was  long  and  very  difficult.  What  was 
needed  was  a  system  which  would  produce  as  brilliant  results  cheaply 
enough  to  overcome  the  costs  of  transportation;  the  copyist  found  it 
too  expensive. 

In  pursuing  his  experiments  in  what  is  known  as  favrile  the  artist 

26 


it 


FAVRILE  GLASS 


was  attracted  by  the  effect  of  colored  glass  immersed  in  a  solid  sea 
of  transparent  crystal.  The  old  Venetians  used  to  imprison  gold 
foil,  forming  therewith  figures  in  the  bottom  of  drinking  cups. 
Figures  and  pictures  caught  in  glass  like  flies  in  amber  are  not 
unknown  in  the  past.  But  here  again  Tiffany  produced  something 
new.  For  a  time  he  devoted  himself  to  the  production  of  charming 
little  petals,  flowers,  leaves  in  glass,  which  were  assembled  in 
proper  natural  order  and  then  annealed  all  about  with  clear  glass 
until  gradually  a  vase  was  formed,  in  the  solid  stem  of  which  or  in  its 
broad  thick  bottom  the  flowers  hung  suspended.  This  style  of  vase, 
however,  can  never  become  widely  used  because  the  extreme  difficulty 
of  its  construction  makes  its  cost  too  great.  They  will  soon  become 
rare.  Given  another  artist  placed  in  similar  conditions  who  is  in¬ 
tensely  interested  in  the  experiment  and  can  devote  the  time  to  it,  and 
similar  results  may  be  obtained. 

The  development  of  iridescent  colors  and  all  the  varied  hues  and 
shades  in  favrile  glass  calls  upon  chemical  knowledge  and  makes  the 
production  of  new  combinations  a  very  fascinating  occupation.  An¬ 
cient  Greek  and  Roman  glass  subjected  to  the  disintegrating  effects  of 
burial  for  long  periods  in  a  humid  soil  has  produced  objects  of  great 
attraction  to  amateurs,  some  of  whom  devote  themselves  to  their  col¬ 
lection.  Just  as  modern  painters  have  tried  to  rival  in  painting  the 
tones  effected  by  age  on  old  pictures,  so  in  his  favrile  glass  Tiffany 
has  vied  with  that  beauty  which  has  been  added  to  antique  glass  by 
the  centuries,  aided  perhaps  by  the  oily  contents  of  such  receptacles 
as  were  filled  with  cosmetics  and  other  unguents.  His  taste  in  color 
has  found  expression  in  a  thousand  articles  of  applied  art;  these,  oc¬ 
cupying  prominent  places  in  households,  have  exercised  a  happy 
influence  on  the  taste  of  citizens.  It  is  obvious  that  such  influ¬ 
ences  exist  and  make  themselves  felt;  but  that  is  seldom  thought  of. 
Yet  the  fact  that  things  of  daily  use  like  lamps,  flower-vases,  and 
toilet  articles  reach  a  wider  public  than  do  paintings  and  sculpture 

27 


FAVRILE  GLASS 


make  the  “decorative”  arts  more  important  to  a  nation  than  the  “fine” 
arts.  Hence  the  value  to  a  community  of  artists  who  devote  their 
talent  to  making  things  of  use  beautiful.  They  are  educators  of 
the  people  in  the  truest  sense,  not  as  school  masters  laying  down 
the  law,  but  as  masters  of  art  appealing  to  the  emotions  and  the 
senses  and  rousing  enthusiasm  for  beauty  in  one’s  environment. 


28 


CHAPTER  IV 

ENAMELS  AND  JEWELRY 


CHAPTER  IV 

ENAMELS  AND  JEWELRY 


The  writer  has  met  several  men  who  made  a  practice  of  collecting 
unset  precious  and  semi-precious  stones  and  carrying  about  with  them 
a  large  wallet  filled  with  the  choicest  specimens  of  their  hoards.  One 
was  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  They  enjoyed  handling  these  jewels  and 
loved  to  watch  them  sparkle  in  the  sunlight  as  they  shifted  them 
from  side  to  side.  One  can  imagine  Louis  C.  Tiffany  also  doing 
this.  But  with  him,  if  he  ever  did  it,  the  act  would  have  been,  not 
a  purposeless  one  of  simple  enjoyment  in  the  glow  and  sparkle  of 
jewels,  but  a  fruitful  deed,  the  first  step  to  the  production  of  some 
little  work  of  art. 

Stained  glass  windows  and  small  objects  in  colored  glass  led  their 
designer  naturally,  one  may  say  inevitably,  to  a  synthetic  treatment  of 
enamel  and  precious  stones.  A  painter  who  is  born  with  a  sense  for 
color — and  he,  strange  to  say,  is  not  common — must  revel  in  the 
deep-set  richness  of  hue  offered  by  precious  gems  and  love  the  tones 
so  lavishly  presented  by  nature  in  marbles,  onyx,  malachite,  and  car- 
nelian;  in  various  shells;  in  pearls,  opals  and  coral;  in  old  amber  and 
tortoise  shell.  Enamels  on  copper,  silver  or  gold  afford  an  almost 
inexhaustible  variety  of  background  against  which  these  semi-precious 
materials  may  stand  relieved — not  to  speak  of  harder  stones  like 
diamond,  ruby,  sapphire. 

It  is  not  hard  to  imagine  the  enjoyment  which  an  artist  of  Mr.  Tiffany’s 
nature,  training,  and  antecedents  obtained  from  the  exercise  of  his 


31 


ENAMELS  AND  JEWELRY 


faculties  and  taste  in  the  designing  of  such  rare  and  beautiful  things. 
In  addition  to  their  flower-like  colors,  to  their  hues  only  rivalled  by 
sunsets,  rainbows  and  the  northern  aurora,  these  objects  have  an 
indestructibility  which  is  very  appealing  to  most  men  and  women. 
Along  with  a  seeming  fragility  like  that  of  petals  and  tendrils  of  the  vine 
they  have  a  solidity  of  material  and  a  thoroughness  in  workmanship 
which  place  them  in  a  high  rank,  considered  merely  from  the  crafts¬ 
man’s  viewpoint.  Tiffany,  one  may  say  without  exaggeration,  has  been 
the  foremost  exponent  of  the  arts  and  crafts  in  America.  And  in  no 
point  does  he  better  deserve  the  title  of  fabrum  princeps  than  in  the 
technical  soundness  of  these  pretty  pieces.  It  is  not  for  nothing  that 
he  is  the  son  of  Charles  L.  Tiffany. 

The  sixth  floor  of  the  great  building  on  Fifth  Avenue  known  as 
Tiffany  &  Company  contains  the  department  of  original — that  is  to 
say  individual  and  unduplicated — enamels  and  jewels  designed  by 
Louis  C.  Tiffany.  A  sketch  by  the  master  is  taken  in  hand;  often 
a  second  water  color  cartoon  is  made  and  from  this  is  built  up  with 
wax  and  various  precious  materials  the  model  of  the  coming  piece. 
At  various  stages  in  its  development  the  master  is  consulted.  The  gold 
or  platinum,  the  silver  or  copper  framework  is  made  from  the  wax 
model  by  trained  craftsmen  and  craftswomen  and  the  enamels  are 
painted  in  and  fired.  Then  the  materials  which  will  not  bear  the 
heat  of  firing  are  temporarily  put  in  place  for  a  last  revision.  When 
the  master  is  satisfied,  the  final  touches  are  applied,  the  jewels  or 
semi-precious  materials  are  solidly  joined  to  their  beds  and  the  object, 
a  result  of  many  consultations  and  many  expert  hands,  is  ready  for 
the  show-case. 

Not  only  the  favrile  glass  pieces  mentioned  in  a  former  chapter 
but  objects  like  those  alluded  to  above  are  permanent  exhibits  in 
many  museums,  such  as  the  Musee  des  Arts  Decoratifs  in  Paris,  the 
Victoria  and  Albert  Museum,  South  Kensington,  London,  the  Metro¬ 
politan  Museum,  New  York,  the  Walters  Gallery,  Baltimore.  Many 


32 


♦ 


ENAMELS  AND  JEWELRY 


luxurious  private  houses  have  Louis  C.  Tiffany’s  enameled  objects. 
His  constructions  in  color  for  personal  jewelry  are  favorites  in  a 
host  of  households.  Owing  to  the  extraordinary  collections  of  all 
sorts  of  gems  and  colored  stones  amassed  by  Tiffany  &  Company, 
this  department  has  a  variety  and  wealth  of  materials  to  choose 
from,  the  like  of  which  does  not  exist  in  America  or  in  any  known 
land. 

One  of  the  earliest  designs  for  personal  jewelry  which  occurred  to 
Mr.  Tiffany  is  the  flower  of  the  wild  carrot,  called  Queen  Anne’s 
Lace.  This  charming  weed  is  found  everywhere.  Its  unpretending 
wheel  formed  of  a  great  number  of  small  white  flowers,  sometimes 
of  a  delicate  mauve,  will  often  carry  a  small  dark  floweret  in  the 
centre  of  the  disk.  This  wheel  is  reproduced  in  white  enamel  on  silver, 
with  a  garnet  at  the  centre.  A  dragon  fly  for  a  hat-pin  is  enameled 
and  set  with  opals  on  a  platinum  base.  A  marine  motif,  half  crab, 
half  octopus,  with  the  writhing  feet  split  into  two  or  more  special  ends, 
is  arranged  for  a  brooch  and  set  with  opals,  sapphires  and  rubies. 
This  piece  is  now  in  the  Walters  Gallery.  A  girdle  of  silver  ornamented 
with  enamels,  has  berries  formed  of  opals.  A  decoration  for  the  head  is 
a  branch  of  blackberries,  the  leaves  made  of  filigree  of  gold  and  silver, 
enameled,  the  berries  composed  of  clusters  of  dark  garnets.  Another 
design  is  the  dandelion  full  blown  with  seed,  the  “four  o’clock.”  A 
third  is  a  spray  of  the  little  spirea  flower. 

Another,  likewise  now  in  Baltimore  at  the  Walters  Gallery,  is  the 
Peacock  necklace,  the  main  piece  of  which  is  a  mosaic  of  opals, 
amethysts  and  sapphires.  The  less  large  pieces  that  adjoin  the  centre 
are  of  enamel  on  gold  repousse  work,  lighted  up  with  opals  and 
rubies,  emeralds  being  used  to  relieve  the  colors.  The  back  of  the 
big  centre-piece  has  a  decoration  of  flamingoes  and  the  lowest  point 
of  the  pendant  below  is  a  single  large  ruby,  selected  not  for  its  cost¬ 
liness  but  for  the  exact  shade  of  its  red.  Objects  of  this  sort  make 
one  feel  that  the  artist  has  studied  well  the  enamels  of  China  and 


33 


ENAMELS  AND  JEWELRY 


Japan  without  losing  sight  of  those  of  Byzantium  and  the  Italian 
Renaissance.  Neither  color  nor  design  is  Oriental,  but  it  is  certain 
that  the  Orient  has  had  a  stimulating  effect,  as  we  perceive  to  have 
been  the  case  with  Whistler  and  La  Farge  and  many  French  painters 
and  decorators.  Tiffany  has  taken  the  best,  namely,  the  spirit  of  the 
Oriental  craftsmen,  without  falling  so  far  under  their  spell  as  to  be¬ 
come  a  copyist,  and  this  independence  and  originality  will  be  found 
in  the  form  of  his  works  as  well  as  in  the  designs  wrought  upon 
them. 

Among  the  most  exquisite  products  of  the  Tiffany  enamels  are 
pieces  meant  to  hold  flower  pots  or  cut  flowers,  decorative  vases  for 
the  drawing  room  or  dining  table,  trinket-holders  for  the  toilet  table, 
bonbonnieres,  etc.  Some  of  these  have  been  reproduced  here  by  a 
color  process  to  give  some  idea  of  their  deep  and  glowing  color 
scheme.  Beside  these  warm  and  resplendent  enamels  the  tones  of 
old  Limoges  ware  look  formal  and  cold.  The  designs  are  commonly 
flower  motifs  which  recall  Mr.  Tiffany’s  paintings  of  roses,  rhododen¬ 
drons  and  paeonies.  They  reflect  the  pleasure  which  the  artist  takes 
in  color,  analogous  in  music  to  the  notes  of  the  ’cello.  Observe  the 
small  vase  in  the  illustration  which  has  in  repousse  relief  a  number 
of  toadstools  in  different  stages  of  growth.  The  artist  has  succeeded 
in  suggesting  the  very  texture  of  the  fungus.  The  red  and  rose 
tints  of  the  plants  and  the  varied  greens  of  the  vase  form  a  sumptuous 
color  scheme  and  lend  to  the  small  object  that  precious  quality  which 
is  so  difficult  to  attain.  A  smaller  round  pot  with  decoration  of  red 
flowers  in  relief  makes  the  same  impression.  A  wide  mouthed  bowl 
or  cup  with  red  flowers  deep  in  the  smooth  surface,  not  repousse,  is 
notable  for  the  simple  elegance  of  its  shape  and  the  glow  of  the 
flower  motif. 

Next  to  the  structure  of  the  design  is  the  color  scheme  in  these  and 
a  hundred  other  pieces.  Long  practice  in  selecting  glass  for  windows 
trains  an  artist  to  a  certainty  of  eye  which  makes  him  instantaneous 

34 


- 


ENAMELS  AND  JEWELRY 


in  his  judgment.  He  does  not  require  a  rule  of  color  adjustment;  it 
is  more  like  an  instinct.  This  allows  the  master  to  get  through  a  vast 
quantity  of  work  in  a  given  time.  Mr.  Tiffany  has  his  helpers  so 
well  trained  that  he  needs  to  devote  but  a  few  hours  a  day  to  enamels 
and  jewelry.  It  is  through  his  study  of  flowers  as  a  painter  interested 
in  nature  and  his  delight  in  the  growing  of  flowers  that  he  has  come 
to  many  happy  adaptations  of  flower  forms  in  enamel  work  and 
stained  glass.  Insect  life  and  marine  forms  have  suggested  other  com¬ 
binations  of  lines  and  masses,  hues  and  shades.  He  has  followed  the 
bidding  “reach  boldly  out  and  grasp  the  life  about  you”  as  we  may 
paraphrase  one  of  Goethe’s  best  known  verses,  and  taken  advantage 
of  the  endless  wealth  of  precept  and  suggestion  that  lies  around  us  in 
air  and  water  and  earth,  in  all  the  vast,  teeming  bosom  of  nature. 

Articles  of  personal  adornment  are  wont  to  be  rated  low  throughout 
the  wide  field  of  art  in  contradistinction  to  objects  of  the  fine  arts. 
One  must  not  forget,  however,  that  they  appeal  to  the  very  widest  im¬ 
aginable  circle  of  buyers.  Practically  all  women  and  most  men  take 
an  interest  of  a  more  or  less  lively  sort  in  things  which  they  carry 
about  their  persons.  It  is  well,  therefore,  that  objects  of  the  sort 
should  be  beautiful  or  at  any  rate  exhibit  some  taste.  One  may  say 
that  the  quality,  the  artistic  quality,  of  the  jewelry  which  is  found 
among  a  people  goes  far  to  measure  that  people’s  level  in  art.  Hence 
the  importance  of  having  artists  instead  of  untrained  artisans  to  supply 
jewelers  with  designs;  hence  the  value  to  the  people  of  Mr.  Tiffany’s 
efforts  to  supply  a  class  of  jewelry  not  only  original  and  individual, 
but  often  very  beautiful.  Each  piece  acts  as  a  little  missionary  of 
art  and  tries  in  its  own  dumb  way  to  convert  the  Philistine. 


35 


CHAPTER  V 

TEXTILES  AND  HAND  STUFFS 


CHAPTER  V 

TEXTILES  AND  HAND  STUFFS 

One  of  the  most  interesting  things  in  the  study  of  the  arts  while  tracing 
their  development  in  the  past  is  to  note  the  action  of  one  art  upon 
another,  such  as  that  of  sculpture  upon  painting,  of  mosaic  on  stained 
glass,  of  basketry  on  pottery  and  porcelain.  Not  only  by  peculiarities 
of  modeling  in  ancient  and  in  savage  pottery,  for  example,  can  one 
detect  that  an  original  must  have  been  a  woven  object  which  was  copied 
in  clay.  Signs  of  this  same  ancestry  cling  to  objects  of  more  recent 
and  higher  artistic  effort  such  as  Chinese,  Persian  and  European  pottery 
and  porcelain.  There  can  be  little  question  that  a  great  number  of 
designs  owe  their  origin  to  textiles,  and  their  wide  popularity  to  the 
fact  that  such  objects  are  easily  transported.  They  formed  a  natural 
staple  in  the  barter  and  sale  between  different  nations  for  that  very 
reason.  What  seems  to  have  almost  escaped  notice  is,  that  architec¬ 
ture  itself  has  been  profoundly  affected  in  many  parts  of  the  globe  by 
motives  taken  originally  from  woven  goods.  The  facades  of  temples 
and  palaces  and  communal  houses  in  Yucatan  and  Guatemala  are 
quite  generally  carved  with  decorative  designs  and  figures  in  relief 
which  suggest  a  woven  textile  ancestry. 

The  hut  made  of  woven  work  in  reed,  bamboo  or  grass,  the 
tent  composed  of  cloth,  of  hair,  wool,  cotton  or  silk,  have  left  their 
ineffaceable  mark  upon  the  architecture  of  more  than  half  the  peo¬ 
ples  of  the  earth.  Those  who  are  curious  in  such  matters  will  dis¬ 
cover  hints  of  a  similar  origin  in  Egyptian,  Greek,  Roman  and  Gothic 

39 


TEXTILES  AND  HAND  STUFFS 

buildings — if  not  in  their  structural  parts,  yet  often  discernible  in 
minor  details. 

It  may  be,  that,  next  in  antiquity  to  the  decoration  of  the  body  with 
paint  or  tattoo  marks  came  the  adornment  of  the  figure  with  a  cloak  or 
blanket,  woven  to  a  more  or  less  intricate  design,  according  to  the 
social  standing  of  the  wearer.  So,  among  the  Kelts  of  Ireland  and 
Scotland,  who  in  all  probability  repeated  what  was  common  to  the 
Gauls  and  other  Keltic  nations  in  Europe  and  Asia,  the  under  folk  wore 
garments  of  a  single  dull  hue;  clothing  of  several  shades  denoted  a  rise 
in  social  rank,  while  aristocrats  and  leaders  of  strong  clans  expressed 
their  caste  by  the  presence  in  the  tartan  of  many  colors.  Indeed,  old 
Irish  texts  which  have  survived  lay  down  the  rules  which  once  governed 
the  laws  of  Ireland  and  Scotland,  rules  which  must  have  made  it  danger¬ 
ous  for  men  to  wear  more  colors  in  their  kilts  and  plaids  than  to  their 
rank  the  law  allowed.  Recall  Joseph’s  “coat  of  many  colors.”  The 
Romans  had  very  definite  rules  as  to  the  colors  of  the  toga,  certain  bor¬ 
ders  in  color  being  reserved  to  Senators.  Hints  of  similar  ideas  are 
found  early  in  Greek  and  Oriental  history,  as  when  the  historian  remarks 
of  some  slave,  pirate  or  low-born  adventurer,  with  a  disgust  he  is  sure 
his  reader  shares,  that  the  person  thus  characterized  assumed  the  dress 
of  a  king,  or  else  he  may  remark  concerning  some  politic  king,  that, 
having  taken  a  city  formerly  governed  as  a  democracy,  the  king  afore¬ 
said  entered  the  town  without  his  royal  robes  in  order  to  win  the  good¬ 
will  of  the  conquered. 

“Through  tattered  clothes  small  vices  do  appear; 

Robes  and  furred  gowns  hide  all.” 

Not  the  crown  alone,  but  garments  of  a  certain  cut  and  traditional 
colors  were  signs  of  rank.  And  from  Homer  down  we  find  Greeks 
and  “barbarians”  honoring  the  statues  of  their  gods  by  clothing  them 
in  the  most  sumptuous  of  colored  robes.  Nations  who  boasted  that 

40 


TEXTILES  AND  HAND  STUFFS 


they  never  worshipped  “stock  and  stone”  none  the  less  used  such  pro¬ 
ducts  of  the  loom  to  express  their  reverence  for  the  Deity. 

In  remote  ages  it  may  have  been  woman  who  did  the  weaving,  as  she 
appears  to  have  made  the  pottery  for  the  cruder  needs  of  the  prehistoric 
kitchen.  But  as  far  back  as  records  run  it  is  man  who  appears  to  have 
furnished  designs  and  directed  the  work  of  loom  and  kiln  whenever 
the  output  was  intended  for  some  special  magnificence  or  merely  for 
quantity  to  sell  in  the  general  market.  Thus,  when  Moses,  alleging 
commands  from  on  high,  urged  the  Jews  to  bring  him  materials  to  form 
the  tabernacle,  we  are  told  that  “all  the  women  that  were  wise-hearted 
did  spin  with  their  hands  and  brought  that  which  they  had  spun,  both 
of  blue  and  purple  and  of  scarlet  and  of  fine  linen.”  But  by  divine 
order  Moses  appointed  two  men  to  confect  the  tabernacle,  Bezaleel  the 
son  of  Uri  of  the  tribe  Judah,  who  was  an  expert  in  metalwork  and 
carpentry,  and  Aholiab  the  son  of  Ahisamach  of  the  tribe  of  Dan, 
who  was  an  expert  in  textiles.  The  vast  fame  of  Egypt  for  its  woven 
goods  explains  the  presence  of  artist-artisans  of  this  rank  in  the  Jewish 
camps. 

“Them  hath  He  filled  with  the  wisdom  of  the  heart  to  work  all  man¬ 
ner  of  work,  of  the  engraver  and  of  the  cunning  workman  and  of  the 
embroiderer  in  blue  and  in  purple,  in  scarlet  and  in  fine  linen,  and  of  the 
weaver,  even  of  them  that  do  any  work  and  of  those  that  devise  cunning 
work.”  Aholiab  is  one  of  the  earliest  artists  in  weaving  and  embroid¬ 
ery  of  whom  we  have  record. 

At  Troy  the  fugitive  wife  of  Menelaos  is  described  as  “weaving  a 
great  purple  web  of  double  fold  and  embroidering  thereon  many  battles 
of  horse-taming  Trojans  and  mail-clad  Achaians”;  and  Andromache 
hears  of  her  Hector’s  death  as  she  is  “weaving  a  double  purple  web 
and  broidering  therein  manifold  flowers.”  Penelope  manages  to  put 
off  the  suitors  many  years  by  pretending  to  be  engaged  on  a  great 
funeral  cloak  for  her  father-in-law  Laertes. 

All  these  were  home  industries  for  family  use.  We  may  be  sure, 

41 


TEXTILES  AND  HAND  STUFFS 


however,  that  Phoenicians,  Pelasgians  and  early  Greeks  drove  a  great 
trade  in  textile  goods,  carpets,  hangings  and  shawls  which  must  have 
been  largely  supplied  by  commercial  looms  conducted  by  families  of 
artisans  both  free  and  slave.  And  there  is  no  good  reason  to  doubt 
that  children  were  employed,  just  as  they  are  to-day  in  Asia,  to  carry  on 
the  actual  manual  drudgery  of  the  loom  according  to  rules  and  regula¬ 
tions  handed  down  in  families  from  generation  to  generation,  executing 
blindly  many  complicated  designs,  the  origin  of  which  was  lost  in  the 
mists  of  the  past.  At  Athens  young  girls  made  the  peplos  offered 
every  four  years  to  Pallas  Athene,  represented  by  her  ancient  statue  in 
wood.  But  for  the  hangings  in  the  Parthenon,  about  the  colossal  gold 
and  ivory  statue  by  Pheidias,  it  was  Pheidias  himself  who  gave  the 
designs. 

One  need  not  be  surprised,  then,  to  find  that  Louis  C.  Tiffany  has 
been  tempted  to  make  excursions  into  the  field  of  the  loom  through  the 
charm  of  textile  work,  in  order  to  obtain  rugs,  carpets  and  hangings 
which  will  express  his  particular  color  sense  and  harmonize  with  certain 
given  interiors.  While  he  has  never  set  up  looms  of  his  own,  he  has 
devoted  a  good  deal  of  time  to  the  dyeing  and  finishing  of  textiles 
woven  elsewhere,  taking  loom  works  of  a  neutral  shade  and  giving  them 
art  value  under  his  personal  superintendence.  In  this  way  he  has  made 
them  vie  with  paintings  for  their  color  charm  and  greatly  surpass  paint¬ 
ings  in  purely  decorative  effect.  Some  exhibit  changes  of  tint  as  they 
fall  in  folds  and  catch  the  light;  their  shadows  are  full  of  unexpected 
colors.  On  the  other  hand,  the  stately  and  sober-toned  rugs  and  car¬ 
pets  of  China,  made  for  broad  surfaces  and  calculated  to  enhance,  not 
to  interfere  with,  the  richer  walls  and  furniture  of  palaces  and  temples, 
have  found  him  sympathetic,  so  that  he  has  produced  carpets  of  the  lar¬ 
gest  size  in  which  the  designs  are  incorporated  by  stamping  the  material 
with  patterns  carved  in  wood,  which  deeply  stain  the  heavy  pile  of  the 
material  in  order  to  effect  the  designs  and  color  scheme  required. 

It  is  the  part  of  a  rounded  artist  to  know  when  and  where  the  hot 

42 


1 


TEXTILES  AND  HAND  STUFFS 


and  the  cool  color,  the  rich  and  the  pale  tone  should  be  applied.  Tiffany 
has  known  how  to  run  the  gamut  of  colors  in  the  most  diverse  branches 
of  art  according  to  the  place  the  object  in  question  is  meant  to  occupy. 

When  one  examines  the  textile  objects  in  exhibitions  of  the  arts  and 
crafts  one  observes  a  great  timidity  among  the  artisans  with  regard  to 
color.  A  similar  reliance  on  neutral  tints  may  be  seen  in  architecture, 
sculpture,  jewelry,  pottery,  even  mosaic;  so,  one  comes  to  the  conclu¬ 
sion  that  the  public  dislikes  strong  coloration,  or,  at  any  rate,  that  the 
workmen  and  workwomen  think  the  public  does.  The  impression  one 
gets  is  lack  of  courage,  an  obscure  feeling  that  color  is  a  danger;  and 
perhaps  that  feeling  is  based  on  a  real  lack  of  temperament  in  public  and 
in  workmen  which  makes  them  unable  to  distinguish  between  deep, 
strong  coloration  and  gaudiness.  Perhaps  it  springs  from  a  lack  of 
naivete,  a  presence  of  self-consciousness  which  combine  to  depress  and 
sterilize  art. 

Certainly  our  climate  invites  to  sumptuous  colors. 

It  is  therefore  incumbent  upon  leaders  in  the  arts  to  counteract  this 
weakness  on  the  part  of  the  public  by  making  people  familiar  with 
works  full  of  powerful  color  and  accustoming  them  to  something  richer 
and  more  virile  than  the  drabs  and  greys  and  anaemic  color  schemes  of 
the  past.  It  is  only  fair  to  say  that,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  Louis 
C.  Tiffany  has  powerfully  helped  to  educate  the  public  in  this  respect. 


43 


CHAPTER  VI 
A  DECORATOR  OF 


INTERIORS 


CHAPTER  VI 

A  DECORATOR  OF  INTERIORS 

As  we  see  by  the  example  of  Whistler  and  his  Peacock  Room,  an 
artist  who  has  the  decorative  feeling  highly  developed  is  always  eager 
to  carry  out  his  ideas  in  a  completely  enclosed  interior,  where  nothing 
shall  intrude  to  mar  the  effect  of  the  decoration  as  a  whole.  It  has 
been  Tiffany’s  good  fortune  to  enjoy  this  difficult  task  on  several 
occasions.  To  a  certain  degree  it  was  possible  in  the  case  of  the 
crypt  in  the  cathedral  of  St.  John  the  Divine;  in  that  crypt  the  chapel 
niche  at  any  rate,  was  given  over  to  his  artistic  ministrations.  By  the  use 
of  mosaic  he  produced  something  which  was  well  suited  to  that  style 
of  architecture  in  accordance  with  which  the  edifice  was  begun. 
If  in  the  process,  the  slow  process  of  building  the  Protestant  Cathe¬ 
dral,  the  style  was  changed  from  Romanesque  to  Gothic,  the  latter 
appears  only  in  the  upper  structure,  in  the  choir  and  chapels.  It  will 
be  impossible  at  this  date  to  change  the  crypt  and  the  main  masses 
of  the  choir  to  Gothic.  Now  the  Romanesque  like  the  Byzantine 
style  out  of  which  it  rose,  is  remarkable  for  broad  spaces  unbroken 
by  windows,  and  for  these  spaces  of  wall  the  natural  adornment  is 
painting,  or  preferably  mosaic. 

Glass  and  stone  mosaic  may  be  said  to  be  the  parent  of  stained 
glass  windows.  Although  we  can  find  some  traces  of  colored  glass 
for  window  openings  in  the  first  century  before  Christ,  yet  it  was  the 
Gothic,  a  thousand  years  later,  that  caused  it  to  bloom  into  a  full- 
grown  branch  of  beauty.  Mosaic  as  it  has  been  handled  in  Rome 

47 


A  DECORATOR  OF  INTERIORS 


for  the  copying  of  famous  paintings  during  recent  centuries  is  a 
mechanical  affair,  meant  to  insure  permanency  and  easily  justified  by 
the  certainty  that  the  originals  are  doomed  to  a  gradual  decay.  There 
is  no  art  in  such  preservative  measures.  It  is  different  with  mosaics 
as  they  were  employed  from  the  fifth  to  the  ninth  century  under  the 
later  Roman  and  Byzantine  emperors,  such  mosaics  as  we  see 
surviving  at  Ravenna  and  Rome,  and,  occasionally,  in  the  shape  of 
mosaic  pavements,  in  different  parts  of  Europe  and  northern  Africa. 
In  such  cases  we  meet  them  as  durable  substitutes  for  wall  paintings 
and  carpets,  not  copies  of  such  things  but  objects  of  an  independent 
art. 

In  mosaics,  almost  as  much  as  in  stained  glass  windows,  there  is 
necessary  to  their  eminence  a  feeling  for  rich  color  which  must  be 
innate  since  it  cannot  be  acquired.  The  sense  must  be  delicate  also, 
because  it  depends  on  the  surroundings  and  the  light,  whether 
brilliant  colors  or  dull,  whether  simple  designs  or  complicated  shall 
be  employed.  When  a  mosaic  floor  is  unearthed  on  the  site  of  a 
Roman  temple  or  villa  we  have  no  means  of  determining  under  what 
conditions  as  to  lighting  the  artist  carried  out  his  task.  We  have 
the  same  difficulty,  but  perhaps  to  a  less  degree,  with  ancient 
sculpture  and  architecture.  We  must  try  to  imagine  what  effect  they 
had  when  entire,  when  clothed  with  colors,  for  both  temple  and 
statue  were  painted,  while  the  effigies  of  gods  and  goddesses  were 
often  decked  out  with  robes  and  ornamented  with  crowns,  fillets, 
earrings  and  chains  of  gold.  A  very  false  idea  of  classic  art  grew  up 
during  the  Renaissance  period  and  persisted  until  the  latter  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  an  idea  that  it  was  cold  from  lack  of  color. 
An  artist  who  would  like  to  employ  the  richest  materials  in  archi¬ 
tecture,  sculpture,  painting  and  the  decorative  arts  finds  even  now 
the  mistakes  made  in  former  centuries  concerning  ancient  art  hard 
to  combat. 

The  Chapel  of  the  Crypt  was  shown  at  the  World’s  Columbian  Ex- 

48 


A  DECORATOR  OF  INTERIORS 


position  in  1893  and  was  bought  by  Mrs.  Celia  H.  Wallace  of  Chicago 
who  gave  it  to  the  Cathedral  of  St.  John  the  Divine  in  New  York 
at  a  time  when  the  crypt  was  the  only  portion  of  the  edifice  where 
services  could  be  held.  Since  then  the  choir  has  been  built  and  tempo¬ 
rarily  enclosed.  It  has  been  calculated  by  those  interested  in  such 
statistics  that  well-nigh  a  million  pieces  of  glass  mosaic,  in  which  opal¬ 
escent  glass  predominates,  besides  pearls  and  semi-precious  stones, 
go  to  make  up  the  several  parts  of  the  niche.  The  altar  is  of  white 
marble  enriched  with  mosaic,  the  emblems  of  the  four  Evangelists 
being  composed  of  pearl  and  semi-precious  stones.  There  is  on  the 
retable  an  inscription  in  mosaic  referring  to  the  eucharist.  The 
tabernacle  has  a  door  of  filigree  metal  similarly  enriched.  For  the 
reredos  iridescent  glass  mosaic  has  been  used,  the  design  being  a 
vine  and  a  peacock,  a  bird  which  is  found  in  late  Roman  and 
therefore  Christian  churches,  notwithstanding  its  bad  repute  as  the 
bird  of  Juno  and  the  emblem  of  vanity.  It  was  in  truth  a  bird  be¬ 
loved  of  the  nations  about  the  Mediterranean,  who  imported  it  from 
India.  The  early  peoples  held  it  in  high  esteem  because  it  seemed  to 
symbolize  the  sun  with  its  wheel  of  brilliant,  eyed  feathers,  and  did  in 
fact  commend  itself  to  the  Hindus  for  two  services  it  rendered: 
because  it  hailed  the  coming  of  the  rains  and  because  its  clamor 
notified  them  of  the  presence  of  the  dangerous  big  cats,  the  tiger 
and  the  leopard. 

A  series  of  arches,  with  ornaments  in  relief  overlaid  with  gold 
and  set  with  jewel-like  glass,  represents  the  ciborium.  The  arches 
are  supported  upon  mosaic-incrusted  columns.  There  are  inscriptions 
of  inlaid  mosaics  on  the  five  steps  which  form  the  approach  to  the 
predella  and  three  more  which  bring  one  to  the  altar.  The  numbers 
are  symbolical.  The  upper  three  signify  the  Trinity,  the  lower  the 
five  wounds  of  Christ.  In  the  crypt,  lighted  by  pendent  lamps,  this 
altar  and  its  approaches  establish  a  brilliant  centre  before  the  eyes 
of  the  worshipers. 


49 


A  DECORATOR  OF  INTERIORS 


The  Millbank  or  Anderson  house  on  Thirty-Eighth  Street,  Manhattan, 
also  the  home  of  the  late  H.  O.  Havemeyer,  not  to  speak  of  Mr. 
Tiffany’s  apartments  in  the  Bella,  his  two  homes  on  Long  Island,  and 
his  house  at  Madison  Avenue  and  Seventy-Second  Street,  Manhattan, 
to  be  mentioned  later,  are  full  of  mosaic  work  on  a  greater  or  less 
scale.  The  largest  single  and  complete  work  in  mosaic,  however, 
which  has  issued  from  the  Tiffany  Studios  is  a  great  solid  fire-curtain 
for  the  opera  house  in  the  City  of  Mexico  into  the  making  of  which 
a  vast  quantity  of  colored  glass  cubes  has  entered. 

This  fire-curtain  is  like  a  thick  wall  which  separates  the  stage  from 
the  auditorium  until  the  play  begins.  It  is  meant  to  move  up  and 
down  as  a  single  mass.  A  visitor  to  the  opera  house  will  see,  blocking 
the  stage,  a  vast  window  intersected  by  square  mullions,  beyond 
which  a  magical  landscape  unfolds  itself.  In  the  front  are  flowers 
and  bushes.  Then  come  lakes  and  pastures  with  foothills,  gradually 
taking  the  eye  upward  to  a  mountain-range.  Higher  still  lie  the 
everlasting  snows  of  Popocatepetl  and  Ixtaccihuatl,  the  extinct  volcanoes 
that  look  down  upon  the  valley  of  the  City  of  Mexico.  Above  these 
the  clouds  of  sunset  are  tinged  with  red  and  gold. 

This  largest  of  landscapes  is  not  treated  like  a  panorama  where 
the  foreground  is  occupied  by  actual  objects  in  the  round,  followed 
by  some  in  relief,  so  that  the  picture  gradually  rises  from  things 
actual  until  in  the  canvas  it  becomes  mere  painted  illusion.  Tiepolo 
has  made  ceilings  after  this  fashion.  It  is  color  wrought  in  mosaic  from 
top  to  bottom.  Very  skillfully  indeed  is  the  illusion  of  an  actual  vista 
seen  through  a  great  window  kept  up.  What  adds  to  the  interest  is 
the  illumination.  By  playing  over  its  surface  such  colored  lights 
as  are  usually  part  of  a  well  equipped  theatre,  the  most  delightful 
variations  in  the  picture  are  obtained.  The  illusion  of  a  great  window 
is  complete.  Here  we  have  a  luxury  unknown  to  the  opera  and 
playgoers  of  London,  Paris  and  New  York.  As  soon  as  the  Mexican 
audiences  take  their  seats,  perhaps  before  the  orchestra  begins  to  play, 

50 


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A  DECORATOR  OF  INTERIORS 

they  are  offered  a  pleasure  for  the  eyes  most  unusual  and  varied. 
And  this  should  be  noted  more  particularly:  aside  from  the  beauty  of 
the  picture  presented  the  curtain  is  conspicuous  as  an  example  of 
decorative  art  or  art  applied  to  things  of  use.  For  it  acts  as  a  preventive 
to  fire  spreading  either  way,  from  the  stage  to  the  body  of  the  house,  or 
vice  versa.  It  is  odd  that  storm-tossed  Mexico  should  be  the  first  to 
possess  such  a  colossal  bit  of  luxury  in  applied  art,  but  the  order  was 
given  while  Porfirio  Diaz  was  still  President  and  men  little  guessed  how 
soon  and  suddenly  his  benevolent  tyranny  was  to  end. 

To  revert  to  comprehensive  schemes  of  decoration:  About  1884 
the  Lyceum  Theatre  was  built  on  Fourth  Avenue  where  now  stands 
the  enormous  pile  of  the  Metropolitan  Life  Building.  Many  may 
recall  the  lively  air  of  this  theatre  within;  it  was  decorated  by  Louis 
C.  Tiffany  whose  ateliers  for  stained  glass  and  mosaic,  etc.,  were 
at  that  time,  across  the  avenue,  one  street  to  the  north.  The  scheme  of 
decoration  was  a  novelty  and  may  be  said  to  have  ushered  in  those 
striking  changes  in  auditoriums  of  New  York  theatres  from  bare¬ 
ness,  or  tawdry  sumptuousness,  as  the  case  might  be,  to  the  rich  and 
cozy  interiors  we  now  meet  with  in  more  than  one  playhouse.  The 
color  scheme,  the  materials  used,  and  the  lighting  of  the  Lyceum  were 
altogether  different  from  anything  we  had  had  before.  The  Veterans’ 
Room  in  the  Seventh  Regiment  Armory  was  also  Mr.  Tiffany’s  creation. 
In  this  room  the  ceiling  was  enriched  by  the  profuse  decoration  of  its 
deep  beams;  the  walls  and  fireplace  were  freely  adorned  with  mosaic 
and  metal,  and  from  the  ceiling  large  designs  in  forged  iron  were 
hung,  resulting  in  a  harmony  and  richness  of  effect  rarely  attained  in 
interior  decoration. 


51 


CHAPTER  VII 
A  BUILDER  OF  HOMES 


CHAPTER  VII 
A  BUILDER  OF  HOMES 

An  artist  who  began  at  an  early  period  in  his  active  career  to  con¬ 
sider  the  decoration  of  interiors  would  naturally  turn  his  thoughts  to  the 
making  of  a  material  home  different  from  any  that  can  be  leased;  all 
the  more  so,  if  he  were  a  married  man  with  a  family.  Mr.  Tiffany  did 
arrange  a  home  in  New  York  when  his  children  were  very  young  and 
made  it  an  original  and  beautiful  abode — but  that  was  only  the  first  of 
four  homes  he  has  successively  fashioned,  two  in  the  city,  two  in  the 
country. 

For  the  first  town  home  he  took  the  top  story  of  a  New  York  apart¬ 
ment  house,  the  Bella,  and  transformed  it  into  a  charming  dwelling.  As 
you  entered  from  the  lift  you  found  yourself  in  a  lobby,  lighted  with 
stained  glass,  which  reached  high  up  into  the  peak  of  the  gable  where 
the  beams  themselves  showed  in  a  rich  dull  color-scheme  lighted  here 
and  there  with  plates  and  studs  of  bronze,  the  broad  surfaces  of  the  beams 
showing  the  knots  and  grain  of  the  wood.  The  roof-slopes  were  set  with 
thick  glass  tiles  to  aid  the  light  from  windows,  and  the  windows  them¬ 
selves  were  made  up  of  rounds  of  glass  of  uneven  thickness.  What  with 
staining  and  carving  and  inlays  of  metal  and  glass,  the  dark,  brown- 
beamed  ceiling  made  a  foil  to  the  warm  India-red  walls  and  trim.  A 
novel  effect  in  the  treatment  of  window  sashes  was  to  be  seen  in  the 
gable  of  this  lobby.  The  stained-glass  sash  was  heavy  and  to  raise  it 
there  was  need  of  a  strong  pulley.  Mr.  Tiffany  used  a  large  wooden 
wheel  and  chain  and  exposed  these  to  view,  turning  them  in  fact  into 

55 


A  BUILDER  OF  HOMES 


decorative  objects  by  simply  providing  a  handsome  wheel  and  chain. 
It  would  have  been  a  pity  indeed  to  box-in  such  objects  after  the  ordi¬ 
nary  fashion.  The  counter  weight,  a  shallow  box  playing  up  and  down 
a  groove  to  one  side  of  the  window,  was  turned  likewise  into  a  thing  of 
beauty.  Not  far  off  a  standing  torch-bearer  with  a  hood  suspended 
above  it  gave  at  night  the  pleasant  effect  of  a  moving  flame.  The  hall 
adjacent,  with  its  tall  clock  and  metal-bound  cassone ,  its  carved  settle 
and  shelves  set  with  spoils  from  Algiers,  its  hanging  lamps  and  quaint 
Oriental  keramics  stamped  the  entrance  to  this  apartment  with  the  seal 
of  the  artist. 

The  dining-room  gave  a  chance  for  many  ingenious  arrangements  for 
the  display  of  platters,  plates  and  cups  which  were  nicely  calculated  as 
to  their  effect  upon  the  general  color-scheme  of  the  walls.  About  three 
feet  from  the  floor  ran  a  rack  about  the  room  to  carry  the  larger  plates, 
and  on  both  sides  of  the  tiled  fireplace,  as  well  as  above  it,  were 
shelves  and  nooks  and  wall-closets  for  the  more  delicate  ware,  the 
silver,  etc.  The  upper  walls  were  hung  with  blue  Japanese  textile  work 
embroidered  with  birds  and  cloud  symbols.  The  tiled  fireplace  with 
its  dogs  and  blazing  logs  was  framed  by  a  wooden  hearth-front  and 
mantel  of  the  eighteenth  century,  carved  in  low  relief  with  fan-shaped 
patterns.  Above,  against  the  wall,  was  a  painting  of  pumpkins  and 
half-stripped  corn  and  a  turkey-cock  “making  his  wheel,”  but  this 
painting  was  not  set  in  a  projecting  frame,  merely  held  in  place  by 
strips  of  brown  wood.  The  brilliant  yellow  of  the  pumpkins  and  the 
red  and  iridescent  blues  of  the  turkey  made  this  painting  a  focus  of 
color  for  the  manifold  and  varied  notes  which  sprang  from  every  part 
of  the  room,  lined  as  it  was  with  Oriental  keramics  and  textiles,  brass 
and  bronze,  silver  and  dull  gold. 

In  the  library  he  treated  the  fireplace  in  a  novel  manner,  using  the 
whole  width  of  the  chimney  breast  for  shelving  for  books  and  bric-a- 
brac  and  forming  out  of  iron  plates  an  advanced  hearth  for  wood  fires 
without  disturbing  the  hearth  behind.  It  was  a  hearth  before  and 

56 


A  BUILDER  OF  HOMES 


concealing  the  hearth  of  the  apartment  which  he  had  transfigured  in  so 
many  other  ways.  The  combination  of  books  and  open  fireplace  was 
an  idea  which  commends  itself  to  book-lovers,  for  on  those  shelves  are 
places  for  favorite  authors  and,  high  above  easy  reach,  shelves  for 
particularly  admired  bric-a-brac.  Wherever  not  covered  by  the  books, 
the  walls  were  clad  with  Chinese  matting  touched  up  here  and  there 
with  suggestions  of  flower  and  leaf.  The  iron  plates  of  the  hearth 
and  the  metal  doors  of  an  adjoining  wood-closet  were  decorated  with 
discreet  figures  in  rust-color  and  black,  not  painted  so  much  as  sug¬ 
gested,  like  the  decorations  on  old  metal  pieces  which  have  been  toned 
down  and  almost  obliterated  by  age. 

It  was  by  such  methods  that  Mr.  Tiffany  began  his  home-making, 
having  for  a  basis  the  topmost  story  of  a  New  York  apartment  house. 
The  late  Donald  G.  Mitchell  [Ik  Marvel]  made  this  apartment  the  text 
for  a  number  of  pages  on  interior  decoration  in  “Our  Continent”  some 
thirty  years  ago,  in  which  he  noted  the  cleverness  the  artist  showed  in 
welding  together  into  one  harmonious  whole  the  decorative  art  of  the 
west  and  the  east. 

Walking  up  Madison  Avenue  one  comes  to  a  large  building  on  the 
west  side  of  the  avenue  on  the  northern  corner  of  Seventy-Second  Street. 
Its  roof-line  tells  one  that  an  artist  who  demands  a  north  light  for  his 
studio  dwells  there.  The  upper  floors  of  this  building  form  the  second 
home  Mr.  Tiffany  made  for  himself  in  the  city.  Following  in  the 
lines  of  architecture  first  laid  down  by  the  late  H.  H.  Richardson  in 
the  United  States,  the  firm  of  McKim,  Mead  &  White  designed  the 
structure  in  the  modern  Romanesque  style  which  Richardson  fathered. 
The  massive  arched  entrance  with  its  iron  grille  for  a  gate  is  powerful 
enough  to  support  the  tall  superstructure  in  which  the  architects  have 
employed  a  pleasant  scheme  of  loggias  and  balconies  to  relieve  the 
facade.  The  whole  is  capped  with  a  grand  slope  of  roof  neither  too 
large  nor  too  meagre  for  the  mass  of  the  building.  It  is  an  apartment 
house,  but  ingeniously  arranged  to  give  variety  of  interior  to  the  several 

57 


A  BUILDER  OF  HOMES 


suites.  They  are  served  by  a  stair  and  an  elevator  running  from  one 
side  of  the  wide,  arched  porte  coch'ere. 

While  the  structure  is  due  to  the  designs  of  McKim,  Mead  &  White 
the  roof  with  its  two  stories  superimposed  has  been  designed  by  Mr. 
Tiffany.  The  harsh  lines  of  iron  roof-tree  and  rafters  were  overcome  by 
the  use  of  concrete  and  plaster,  and  the  interior,  of  the  upper  or  studio 
floor  especially,  suggested  at  the  time  the  curved  and  rounded  outlines 
one  associates  with  Fart  nouveau;  but  that  was  before  reaction  against 
formal,  plumb  lines  was  felt  in  this  country.  All  the  flues  for  chimneys 
belonging  to  the  various  apartments  had  to  find  their  exit  through 
the  artist’s  studio  in  the  roof.  To  meet  this  difficulty,  for  the  most 
part  they  were  assembled  in  the  centre  of  the  studio,  and  the  stack  to 
which  they  converged  was  made  one  of  the  chief  decorative  features  of 
the  interior.  With  brick  and  concrete  this  stack  was  modeled  into  a 
shaft  as  easy  of  line  as  the  bole  of  a  great  tree.  On  four  sides  fireplaces 
were  hollowed  out  so  that  the  wide  and  lofty  studio — almost  as  wide  as 
the  area  of  the  building,  high  as  the  peak  of  the  roof  permitted — is 
lighted  up  at  night  in  every  direction  by  smouldering  log  fires.  A  loft 
above  the  main  entrance  to  the  studio  gives  variety  to  the  upper  part 
and  allows  the  placing  of  an  organ  which  is  played  from  a  seat  on  the 
lower  studio  floor. 

Mr.  Tiffany’s  amusement  in  shaping  the  first  home  from  an  apartment 
of  the  ordinary  type  was  greatly  enhanced  when  it  came  to  the  wide 
spaces  and  several  stories  at  his  disposal  in  this  new  problem.  If  in 
the  former  case  he  was  able  to  introduce  a  number  of  space-saving 
inventions  and  turn  the  barren  waste  of  a  flat,  one  surprise  after  another, 
into  an  interior  crammed  with  unexpected  nooks  and  corners,  in  the 
latter  he  has  shown  that  he  might  have  made  his  mark  as  a  decorator  on 
a  grand  scale. 

As  one  enters  the  studio  the  vestibule  is  like  a  bit  from  the  palace  of 
an  Indian  Rajah.  Beams  and  trim  are  carved  wood  from  Hindustan 
and  the  wall  supports  a  trophy  of  curious  Indian  weapons.  Entering 

58 


A  BUILDER  OF  HOMES 


thence  the  lofty  high-peaked  studio,  one  sees  lamps  of  Japanese  bronze 
and  unique  favrile  glass  suspended  from  on  high,  each  adding  a  new 
note  of  color  or  quaint  shape.  Great  windows  of  dull  greenish-yellow 
glass  in  the  sloping  roof  give  a  general  tone  by  daylight.  From  a 
southerly  window  below  the  eaves  one  catches  a  glimpse  of  Central 
Park  to  the  westward.  The  organ  loft  is  full  of  growing  flowers  and 
big  Oriental  vases.  Colored  tiles  and  the  cinnabar  red  so  much  loved 
by  the  Japanese,  iridescent  glass  and  shelves  full  of  keramics  in  subdued 
tones  meet  the  eye  in  every  direction.  Add  to  all  these  objects  the 
flowers  here,  there  and  everywhere — it  is  impossible  to  guess  from 
the  illustrations  what  effects  are  obtained  in  the  way  of  color. 

At  night  the  glow  from  the  hearths  round  the  central  stack  lights  up 
the  brightest  of  the  vases  and  bowls  and  plaques,  gleams  with  dull  rich 
notes  on  copper  and  bronze  and  throws  broad  spaces  of  the  irregular 
apartment  into  deep  shadow.  The  suspended  lamps  of  many  shades 
of  red,  rose,  yellow  and  creamy  white  are  foiled  against  the  blackness 
of  the  high  roof-ceiling.  If  at  that  moment  a  skilled  hand  touches  the 
keys  of  the  organ  the  great  studio  merges  into  fairy-land;  and  one  would 
not  be  surprised  to  see  a  Persian  prince  of  the  Thousand  and  One 
Nights  alight  from  his  enchanted  steed  out  of  the  great  poetic  past. 

The  main  or  lower  story  has  for  its  chief  apartments  the  great  ball¬ 
room,  the  dining-  and  the  breakfast-room.  The  last  named  looks  east¬ 
ward  as  befits  the  room  for  the  morning’s  meal  and  is  in  light  tones  with 
windows  filled  with  glass  that  simulates  flowers  and  twining  plants.  A 
bay  window  looking  southward  down  Madison  Avenue  has  the  jambs 
and  divisions  of  the  casements  decorated  with  Japanese  sword-guards, 
part  of  the  great  collection  of  those  charming  little  art-works  which  Mr. 
Tiffany  accumulated  years  ago  before  it  became  a  fashion  so  to  do.  The 
drawing-room  or  ball-room  has  wall-cases  on  each  side  of  the  broad 
hearth  containing  rare  Oriental  porcelains  and  specimens  of  the  rich 
pieces  in  favrile  glass  which  have  spread  Mr.  Tiffany’s  name  about  the 
world.  But  this  large  apartment  is  not  so  full  of  curious  art-works  as 

59 


A  BUILDER  OF  HOMES 


the  studio.  There  is,  however,  a  niche  treated  in  Persian  fashion,  at  the 
back  of  which  is  a  glass  mosaic  with  floral  design  and  a  composition  of 
peacocks  which  by  itself  surpasses  in  richness  of  tones  any  single  other 
ornament  of  the  home. 

The  dining-room  is  in  its  decoration  the  quietest  of  all.  A  great 
massive  table,  sideboards  with  display  of  silver,  a  wide  hearth  rather 
severely  treated,  a  mantel  filled  with  objects  of  art  and,  above,  a  colored 
plaster-cast  relief  by  Theodore  Bauer  of  New  York.  This  room  is  to  the 
westward  and  is  lighted  from  the  south.  It  is  also  the  darkest  room  in 
the  house,  being  used  for  the  most  part  at  night.  The  drawing-room, 
from  its  generous  floor  space  and  high  ceiling  and  from  its  central 
position  between  dining-  and  breakfast-rooms,  with  a  lobby  running 
parallel  to  the  north,  makes  an  ideal  salon  for  balls  and  receptions, 
since  the  apartments  indicated,  being  on  three  sides  of  it,  afford  the  best 
possible  arrangement  for  the  circulation  of  crowds  without  disturbing 
the  dancers  in  the  big  apartment.  Those  who  have  experienced  the 
difficulty  in  managing  a  host  of  guests  in  New  York  houses  of  no  mean 
dimensions  will  understand  the  practical  importance  of  such  a  plan. 
Add  to  this  the  “ easement”  obtained  by  access  to  the  studio  floor  along 
broad  and  easy  flights  of  stairs  and  still  another  way  of  access  between 
the  studio  floor  and  the  breakfast-room  by  other  stairs,  and  it  will  be 
seen  that  everything  has  been  done  tomake  entertaining  easy  and  effective. 

What  is  particularly  noticeable  in  this  home  is  the  fact  that  the  great 
number  of  beautiful  objects  it  contains  has  not,  as  we  often  find  to  be 
the  case,  taken  from  it  the  home-like  quality.  New  York  has  houses 
which  are  no  more,  no  less  than  museums,  because  the  collections  of 
antiques  and  other  objects  of  art  are  so  obtrusive  that  all  feeling  of  the 
home  has  fled.  In  some  way  or  other  Mr.  Tiffany  has  filled  the  house 
with  beautiful  things  and  yet  retained  the  home.  How  he  has  managed  it 
is  his  own  secret.  Perhaps  like  Topsy  it  “just  growed”.  Loving  the 
objects  for  their  own  sakes,  he  has  added  one  to  the  other  because  he 
could  not  bear  to  exile  any,  and  his  fine  taste  avoided  the  error  of  so 

60 


\ 


A  BUILDER  OF  HOMES 


placing  them  that  they  interfere  with  the  ease  of  living  among  them. 
Should  one  attempt  to  mention  them  all,  or  a  major  part,  this  book 
would  become  a  catalogue  which  no  one  would  care  to  read. 

As  in  his  city  houses,  so  in  his  country  houses.  Mr.  Tiffany  made  a 
home  at  Cold  Spring  Harbor,  Long  Island,  before  he  bought  and 
completed  “  Laurelton  Hall.”  The  house  called  “The  Briars ”  still  stands 
embowered  in  woods  to  the  southward  not  very  far  away,  where  from 
its  cupola  one  gets  glimpses  of  the  Harbor  and  Oyster  Bay  and  Long 
Island  Sound.  The  north  shore  of  Long  Island  is  hilly  and  notwith¬ 
standing  a  sandy  soil  enjoys  a  climate  well  adapted  to  all  kinds  of  trees 
of  the  hardy  sort  and  to  laurel  and  rhododendron,  vines  and  flowers. 
Owing  to  the  ocean  to  the  south  and  the  Sound  to  the  north  the  winter 
is  not  so  rigorous  as  it  is  inland,  while  in  summer  an  almost  tropical  heat 
added  to  the  moisture  in  the  air  makes  everything  from  corn  to  cactus 
grow  luxuriantly.  The  adjacent  waters,  made  famous  early  in  the  last 
century  by  the  novels  of  Fenimore  Cooper,  are  the  favorite  haunts  of 
yachtsmen  and  used  once  to  be  the  home  of  myriads  of  water-fowl 
until  relentless  shooting  drove  them  away.  It  was  here  that  Mr.  Tiffany 
decided  to  pitch  his  summer  camp  back  from  the  water  among  the 
farms  and  woods  where  he  could  sketch  and  paint  and  grow  flowers 
and  fruit  undisturbed  by  near  neighbors — yet  within  thirty  miles  of  his 
work  in  the  city. 

But  here  too  he  found  that  there  were  limits  set  to  his  craving  for 
larger  spaces  in  the  house  and  lands.  To  the  northward,  running  down 
to  the  almost  land-locked  waters  of  Cold  Spring  Harbor,  was  a  property 
which  had  been  once  used  as  a  popular  summer-resort  for  people  who 
came  by  wheel,  steamer  and  sail-boat  to  bathe  and  fish  and  camp  and 
pic-nic  there  during  the  hot  months.  This  property  he  bought,  and 
began  at  once  making  roads  and  planting  trees  and  laying  the  plans  for 
a  spacious  country  house  with  esplanade  and  look-out  tower,  palm  house 
and  greenhouses,  stables  for  horses,  and  barns  for  cows,  everything  in 
short  that  goes  to  make  a  country  place  fitted  to  be  lived  in  the  whole 

61 


A  BUILDER  OF  HOMES 


year  round.  And  as  it  was  in  the  town  studio-home,  so  it  befell  with 
Laurelton  Hall:  the  larger  country  home  partook  of  his  peculiar  tem¬ 
perament  and  became  a  dwelling  entirely  different  from  any  other  in 
the  land.  Instead  of  being  the  expression  of  the  idea  of  an  architect, 
or  that  of  architect  and  owner  combined,  a  mixture  of  two  individualities, 
a  blend  of  two  tastes,  it  is  from  first  to  last  the  house  of  Louis  C.  Tiffany 
and  of  no  one  else  beyond  his  immediate  family  circle.  Here,  as  his 
daughters  married,  they  have  built  their  summer  nests  on  land  given 
them  by  him  for  the  purpose  not  far  from  Laurelton  Hall,  so  that  he 
has  about  him  the  new  generation  growing  up. 

In  order  to  foresee  the  future  and  realize  beforehand  what  he  meant 
to  do  in  and  about  Laurelton  Hall  he  took  the  trouble  to  lay  out  a 
complete  plan  of  the  property  in  modeling-clay  and  wax,  indicating 
according  to  scale  the  hills  and  valleys,  the  clear  spaces  and  woods,  the 
ponds  and  running  waters,  the  mansion  and  its  appurtenances,  the 
stables  and  cow  barns,  the  gates  and  docks.  This  was  an  application  of 
his  careful  modeling  and  his  sense  for  color  to  a  new  branch  of  art 
which  we  may  follow  up  in  the  succeeding  chapter. 

Approaching  by  the  drive,  the  whereabouts  of  the  Hall  is  indicated  by 
a  clock  tower  that  rises  above  the  trees;  but  it  is  not  till  later  that  the 
main  body  of  the  building  springs  to  view.  There  is  something  in  the 
design  of  the  house  analogous  to  the  lower  or  office  story  and  the  piano 
nobile  of  Italian  houses.  From  the  carriage  drive  one  enters  the  house  on 
the  lower  level  of  one  wing  and  ascends  thence  to  the  main  floor;  but  this 
floor  is  nearly  on  a  level  with  the  ground  in  front  of  the  house.  Here 
gravel  walks,  flowering  bushes,  a  pool  of  water,  watched  over  by 
an  immense  Japanese  bronze  dragon,  occupy  the  space  on  the  inland 
side  where  the  tall  clock-tower  can  be  seen  from  finial  to  base. 
Entering  from  this  garden  of  flowers,  aquatic  plants  and  fragrant  bushes, 
one  comes  upon  the  central  apartment,  which  has  also  running  water, 
while  through  its  farther  windows  one  can  see  the  blue  stretches  of  Cold 
Spring  Harbor.  The  tiled  pool  that  freshens  this  middle  room  [simi- 

62 


A  BUILDER  OF  HOMES 


lar  to  the  central  hall  of  a  country  house]  gets  its  water  from  a  glass 
jar  of  wonderful  color  shaped  like  the  slenderest  of  Greek  amphorae. 
This  rises  from  the  middle  of  the  pool.  The  water  bubbling  over  the 
slender  jar  gains  a  tint  from  glass  and  sunlight  combined  which  can  not 
be  described  by  words.  In  position  it  is  the  centre  of  the  house  and  in 
fact  may  be  termed  the  most  beautiful  object  among  the  many  there. 
Strange  to  say,  this  glass  vase  changes  in  color,  varies  not  merely  some¬ 
what  in  accordance  with  the  position  of  the  sun  in  its  fainter  shades, 
but  changes  during  the  longer  lapse  of  time  as  if  through  some  action  of 
the  constant  running  of  the  water  over  the  glass.  The  vase,  it  seems,  has 
a  term  of  life.  After  a  while  the  clear,  pure  transparency  of  the  walls 
is  dimmed  and  the  glass  is  attacked  by  some  corroding  force — oxidation 
through  iron  in  the  water  or  disintegration  through  radio-activity  in  the 
liquid  envelope — and  the  result  is  a  change  of  tone  which  can  be  likened 
to  nothing  else.  So  ethereal,  so  exquisite  is  it  that  one  seeks  in  vain  for  a 
simile.  Unfortunately  these  conditions  do  not  last  indefinitely;  the  time 
comes  when  the  once  transparent  and  then  wonderfully  colored  vase 
reaches  the  end  of  its  career — cracks,  shivers,  explodes. 

Perhaps  we  have  something  parallel  here  to  the  effects  produced  on 
ancient  glass  by  burial  underground  for  centuries,  in  consequence  of 
which  old  crocks  and  tear-vials  and  potsherds  buried  several  thousand 
years  ago  have  accumulated  inside  their  rough  skins  a  wealth  of  color 
that  vies  with  fire-opals,  rainbows  and  the  streamers  of  the  northern 
aurora. 

It  is  highly  characteristic  that  Mr.  Tiffany  should  be  the  one  to  dis¬ 
cover  this  curious  effect  of  running  water  on  glass  in  the  heart  of  his 
splendid  country  house.  For  who  could  appreciate  better  these  fine 
shades  of  color,  delicate  as  moonlight  on  dewy  cobwebs,  than  the  man 
who  has  fixed  in  favrile  glass  so  many  evanescent  hues? 

The  music-room  to  the  eastward,  the  large  airy  dining-room  to  the 
westward,  and,  farther  on,  but  on  a  lower  level,  the  palm-house  with  its 
vault  of  glass  and  the  greenhouses,  all  these  form  a  series  of  apartments, 

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each  different  from  the  other,  each  a  surprise.  From  the  outside  the 
house  does  not  look  to  warrant  so  much  inner  space.  Toward  the 
Harbor  there  are  smaller  rooms,  tea-rooms,  cozy-rooms  and  through 
the  French  windows  one  steps  out  upon  an  esplanade  where  masses  of 
flowers  are  in  bloom  in  the  open  air.  The  portrait  frontispiece  by 
Sorolla  gives  an  idea  of  this.  For  the  rest  a  series  of  admirable  photo¬ 
graphs  reproduced  here  in  black  and  white  must  aid  the  reader  to 
conjure  up  some  of  the  many,  many  charms  of  Laurelton  Hall. 


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CHAPTER  VIII 
AS  LANDSCAPE  ARCHITECT 


CHAPTER  VIII 

AS  LANDSCAPE  ARCHITECT 

Landscape  architecture  is  a  comparatively  modem  word  representing 
a  modern  idea.  Although  the  Persian  monarchs  had  their  “paradises,” 
as  we  know  through  Greek  writers  such  as  Xenophon  and  Diodorus, 
enclosed  pieces  of  land  of  varied  surface,  yet  a  paradise  was  rather 
what  we  would  term  a  park  for  game,  or  Tiergarten  on  a  large  scale, 
with  hunting  lodge  or  palaces  in  it.  We  do  not  learn  that  the  area  was 
arranged  with  art,  although  something  must  have  been  done  to  change 
the  wild  land;  perhaps  roads  were  carried  here  and  there  and  terraces 
built  for  the  emplacement  of  residences.  Doubtless  the  temenos  or  tabu- 
land  about  temples  in  Greece,  Asia  Minor  and  Italy  received  some  care 
in  the  way  of  walls  to  mark  the  boundaries  of  the  sacred  spot;  trees  and 
bushes  were  planted  for  sightliness  and  woods  felled  to  obtain  views  of 
the  temple.  It  was  not,  however,  until  the  Italian  Renaissance,  that  we 
get  a  definite  suggestion  of  landscape  gardening  or  landscape  architec¬ 
ture  in  connection  with  houses  in  the  country,  and  even  then  strictly  in 
subordination  to  the  buildings  it  served  and  improved. 

Chiefly  through  French  and  British  masters  the  art  of  making  a  land¬ 
scape  has  developed  during  recent  centuries  into  an  independent 
profession;  nowadays  we  have  enough  professors  of  the  art  to  warrant 
them  in  forming  clubs  and  societies  among  themselves.  There  is  one 
in  New  York,  another  in  Boston;  perhaps  in  other  American  cities  like 
associations  have  been  made.  These  men  and  women — for  the  art  is 

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AS  LANDSCAPE  ARCHITECT 


now  practised  by  women  also — are  more  or  less  at  the  mercy  of  the 
architects,  who  are  apt  to  hark  back  to  the  old  days  and  insist  that  the 
surroundings  of  a  new  building  shall  partake  of  the  nature  of  a  formal 
or  Italian  garden,  rather  than  offer  such  cautious  modifications  of  the 
natural  conditions  of  the  land  as  the  landscape  architect  might  prefer,  if 
left  to  his  own  predilections. 

The  landscape  architect,  or  “engineer”  as  he  sometimes  calls  himself, 
should  be  an  artist  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word.  It  is  well  with  him 
if  he  has  been  a  painter  of  landscape  in  early  life,  and  learned  to  study 
and  report  the  world  about  him  in  detail  before  attempting  to  mold  and 
model  on  a  grand  scale,  using  hill  and  dale,  woods  and  plains,  roads  and 
water-courses,  lakes  and  rocks  in  such  a  way  that  he  finally  works  out 
the  picture  his  imagination  has  conceived,  a  picture  that  may  take  years 
to  finish.  We  have  on  Manhattan,  New  York,  an  example  in  Central 
Park.  Here  did  Olmsted  and  Vaux  with  consummate  art  fashion  from 
the  most  unpromising  materials  a  pleasure  ground  for  the  dwellers  in  a 
city  which  had  been  laid  out  with  as  little  regard  for  the  needs  of  the 
future  as  possible.  And  ever  since  this  park  was  started  attempts  have 
been  made  again  and  again  to  pervert  it  from  its  original  purpose  and 
destroy  its  calm  and  restfulness,  its  picturesque  and  varied  parts,  by  the 
erection  of  buildings  of  one  kind  or  another.  Landscape  modeling  is 
the  art  which  may  be  termed  the  most  refined  sport  for  princes  and 
kings.  It  is  the  most  difficult  for  democracies,  because  the  best  plans 
are  liable  to  be  thwarted  through  the  ignorance  of  superficial  legislators 
and  the  knavery  of  place-holders  scenting  a  job.  Citizens  have  to  be 
forever  on  the  alert,  or  else,  upon  one  pretext  or  another,  the  park  will  be 
wrested  from  them  by  men  who  swear  and  perhaps  believe  that  they 
have  only  the  good  of  the  community  at  heart. 

For  his  experiments  in  landscape  architecture  on  Long  Island  Mr. 
Tiffany  had  the  advantage  of  his  training  as  a  painter.  In  his  early 
apartment  dwelling,  the  “Bella,”  his  love  of  flowers  displayed  itself  and 
still  more  in  his  later  studio-residence.  Landscape  painting  gave  him 

68 


AS  LANDSCAPE  ARCHITECT 


the  opportunity  to  study  nature  on  a  broader  canvas,  so  that,  when  he 
arranged  his  first  country  residence,  The  Briars,  there  was  little  need  of 
the  professional  landscape  architect.  After  that  comparatively  limited 
experience  he  approached  the  problem  of  the  land  about  Laurelton  Hall 
with  a  confidence  born  of  knowledge.  He  was  ready  to  decide  upon 
what  objects  it  were  best  to  show,  what  conceal,  how  these  trees  would 
look  when  grown,  how  yonder  hedge  would  perform  in  time  its  purpose 
as  a  screen  or  as  a  background  for  flowers,  or  where  the  massed  laurels 
and  rhododendrons  would  best  light  up  the  woodland  paths  in  mid¬ 
summer.  Evergreens  and  deciduous  trees,  oak  and  hickory,  silver  birch 
and  locust,  the  stately  tulip  tree  and  straggling  dogwood,  cedar,  beech 
and  maple,  wood  laurel  and  “swamp  honeysuckle” — each  must  con¬ 
tribute  its  note  of  dull  or  brilliant  color  and  spread  its  bulk  in  the  desired 
spot.  The  sport  of  the  landscape  architect  never  flags,  for  he  plans  ever 
forward,  and,  even  when  the  needful  time  is  granted,  the  best  of  plans  of 
mice  and  men  “gang  aft  agley.”  Diseased  trees,  like  the  chestnuts 
which  have  been  devastated  during  recent  years  by  a  mysterious  bark 
beetle,  have  to  be  doctored  or  felled.  The  tent  caterpillar  and  gipsy 
moth  must  be  combatted  and  sometimes  a  storm  or  a  forest  fire  plays 
havoc  with  the  carefully  calculated  scene. 

Since  the  building  of  the  greenhouses  at  Laurelton  Hall  Mr.Tiffanyhas 
had  at  his  disposal  in  spring  a  mass  of  flowering  plants  with  which  to  paint 
in  living  pigments  the  house  itself  and  its  surroundings,  the  esplanade 
and  porches,  the  flower  beds  and  pools.  Besides  the  grand  background 
of  the  Harbor  against  which  the  Hall  is  projected  when  seen  from 
many  vantage  points,  he  has  utilized  springs  in  the  land  above  to  supply 
the  pond  over  which  the  great  bronze  dragon  broods.  Water  in  larger 
or  smaller  sheets  is  so  efficient  a  factor  in  landscape  architecture  that 
one  feels  its  absence  as  a  loss  scarcely  to  be  tolerated.  The  remoteness 
of  the  lakes  and  pools  in  the  gardens  of  Versailles  from  Versailles  palace 
is  a  detriment;  their  proximity  at  Fontainebleau  is  an  asset  in  the  beauty 
of  the  smaller  royal  abode.  Cascades  and  chateaux  d’eau  at  a  distance 

69 


AS  LANDSCAPE  ARCHITECT 


can  not  make  up  for  a  body  of  water  in  which  buildings  may  be  re¬ 
flected.  That  is  why  moated  granges  with  the  old  moats  full  of  water, 
that  is  why  Venice,  Amsterdam,  and  Stockholm  call  you  back  to  look 
on  them  again,  why  the  Seine  after  all  seems  to  make  Paris,  and  the 
Thames  redeem  London.  Laurelton  Hall  has  no  water  spaces  close 
enough  to  allow  of  reflections  of  its  tower,  but  possesses  running  water 
which  feeds  the  ponds  and  fountains  and  adds  its  pleasant  murmur  to 
the  charming  house  fountain  in  the  central  drawing-room. 

Professional  landscape  architects  are  sure  to  lean  either  toward  the 
formal  garden  which  derives  its  ancestry  from  Italy  or  the  “natural” 
garden  which  came  into  favor  in  Great  Britain  during  the  later 
eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries.  A  type  is  the  well-known 
English  Garden  at  Munich.  This  tendency  has  been  pushed  during 
the  past  century  to  the  point  of  calling  certain  gardens,  or  parts  of 
parks,  a  wild  garden,  in  which  the  least  possible  interference  is  taken 
with  rocks,  grassy  spots,  trees  and  bushes  as  they  are.  When  the  wilder¬ 
ness  is  not  sufficient  an  artificial  wilderness  is  cleverly  simulated. 

Of  the  two  camps  thus  formed  Mr.  Tiffany  would  be  sure  to  give  his 
suffrage  to  the  latter,  except  that  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  Hall 
he  has  conceded  to  formalism  that  which  is  necessary  to  make  the 
proper  transition  from  nature  to  art.  But  even  here  he  has  not  intro¬ 
duced  the  common  device  of  geometrical  flower-beds  and  hedges 
clipped  into  designs  suggestive  of  architecture.  In  another  chapter 
there  was  mention  of  the  textile  origin  of  designs  for  solid  stone  and 
brick  buildings.  To  these  may  be  added  designs  for  flower-beds  of  a 
highly  formal  pattern  which  have  received  the  name  of  “carpet”  beds; 
and  very  correctly  was  the  term  applied,  since  the  inspiration  for  their 
outlines  and  color  masses  came  from  Oriental  works  of  the  loom.  Mr. 
Tiffany’s  idea  has  been,  to  so  arrange  the  environage  of  Laurelton  Hall 
that  a  very  short  walk  carries  one  into  the  woods  where  it  is  possible  to 
forget  the  existence  of  houses,  streets,  and  roads  in  the  presence  of 
nature  unassisted  by  the  architect.  He  has  directed  the  approaches  by 

70 


AS  LANDSCAPE  ARCHITECT 


the  drive  through  the  woods  to  the  westward  in  such  a  way  that  one 
gets  glimpses  of  the  Hall  from  time  to  time  only  to  lose  them  again, 
very  much  as  the  main  driveway  to  the  south  of  the  Hall  does  not  yield 
a  sight  of  the  building  until  one  is  close  upon  it.  From  Cold  Spring 
Harbor,  however,  the  tower  and  main  building,  the  esplanade  and 
greenhouses  are  clearly  defined  against  the  mass  of  many  shaded  ver¬ 
dure  and  form  indeed  the  most  noticeable  feature  of  the  shorescape  for 
those  who  enter  that  deep  bay  from  the  Sound. 

Owing,  it  may  be,  to  the  fact  that  a  large  number  of  our  architects 
have  studied  at  the  Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts  in  Paris,  the  formal  garden  has 
gained  great  vogue  in  the  United  States  where  formerly  the  influence  of 
Downing  and  Frederick  Law  Olmsted  and  his  son  of  the  same  name, 
of  Vaux,  N.  F.  Barrett  and  other  landscape  architects  by  profession 
was  exerted  the  other  way,  in  the  direction  of  the  natural.  It  is  not 
surprising  that  Mr.  Tiffany,  with  his  taste  for  the  picturesque  and  his 
leaning  toward  painting  rather  than  sculpture,  toward  color  rather  than 
form,  should  instinctively  avoid  the  classical  or  formal  and  prefer  the 
romantic  or  natural.  Owing  to  the  errors  made  regarding  true  classical 
architecture  and  sculpture  from  the  Renaissance  down  to  compara¬ 
tively  recent  times,  say  1850,  the  idea  of  color  was  almost  eliminated 
from  anything  “classic.”  People  did  not  realize  that,  in  the  high  tide 
of  Greek  art,  colors  were  used  as  lavishly  as  in  modern  Japan.  Hence 
the  growth  of  the  cold  and  formal  styles  from  whose  ascendancy  we  are 
still  suffering.  Mr.  Tiffany  has  been  one  of  the  most  efficient  among 
modern  combatants  on  the  side  of  those  who  have  been  trying  to  restore 
the  balance  in  art  and  permit  poor  color-starved  humanity  to  enjoy  its 
birthright  of  splendid  color.  The  late  William  Morris  Hunt  once 
made  a  protest  against  the  oppressive  reign  of  so-called  classicism  in 
architecture  when  he  built  an  iron  office  structure  on  Broadway, 
designed  the  faqade  in  a  Moorish  style  and  then  used  color  lavishly  to 
stamp  the  novelty  with  his  vehement  protest.  Either  because  he  could 
not  give  real  richness  to  his  innovation,  owing  to  the  ungrateful  ground 

71 


AS  LANDSCAPE  ARCHITECT 


upon  which  the  color  had  to  be  applied  or  because  the  public  was  not 
ready  for  so  startling  a  thing,  the  effort  did  not  succeed.  This  front 
was  soon  repainted  in  apologetic,  neutral  tones  and  the  protest  failed. 
The  energies  of  Mr.  Tiffany,  directed  toward  landscape  architecture,  like 
those  he  employed  for  other  things,  such  as  the  making  of  rare  glazes 
for  pottery,  have  been  exerted  in  so  unobtrusive  a  way  that  results  may 
have  been  readily  overlooked  even  by  his  own  family.  A  visit  to  Laurel- 
ton  Hall  with  a  thought  to  what  the  property  once  was  and  what  it  is 
now  will  be  distinctly  worth  while. 


72 


AFTERWORD 


AFTERWORD 

In  the  preceding  pages,  should  they  be  thought  worthy  of  a  careful 
reading,  it  may  be  remarked  that  the  words  color,  color-sense,  color¬ 
feeling  often  recur.  The  value  attributed  to  color  has  been  denied 
by  theorists  who  have  started  from  an  untenable  assumption  that  there 
is  a  purity,  there  is  a  moral  worth  attached  to  absence  of  color,  in 
opposition  to  sensuousness  and  luxury  in  a  bad  sense  attached  to  its 
presence.  This  is  a  convenient  theory  for  a  vast  majority  of  artists  who 
are  born  without  the  peculiar  eyes  and  senses  that  distinguish  values 
and  respond  with  sympathy  to  the  vibrations  of  light. 

Persian  textiles,  Japanese  water  colors,  Chinese  porcelain,  Venetian 
paintings,  the  works  of  Rembrandt  and  Velasquez  can  be  forced  into 
appeals  to  sensuousness  and  luxuriousness  only  by  a  twist  in  the  mean¬ 
ing  of  words  which  may  satisfy  the  narrow-minded  and  the  bigot. 
Some  painters  do  make  their  mark  without  having  this  characteristic  to 
any  great  extent,  although  it  would  appear  from  the  nature  of  things 
that  it  ought  to  be  the  painter’s  strongest  trait.  Now  Louis  C.  Tiffany 
belongs  to  the  painters  who  can  be  embraced  under  the  broad  term  of 
colorists;  hence  the  frequent  appearance  of  these  words. 

The  United  States  have  had  more  than  their  share  of  painters  who 
come  under  the  head  of  colorists,  as,  for  instance  in  colony  times, 
Gilbert  Stuart  and  Malbone,  and  later  on,  Henry  Peters  Gray,  George 
Inness,  George  Fuller  and  Whistler,  John  La  Farge  and  Homer  D. 
Martin,  Albert  P.  Ryder  and  John  S.  Sargent.  It  is  to  this  group 

75 


AFTERWORD 


that  Louis  C.  Tiffany  belongs,  and  if  the  relationship  is  not  always 
recognized  the  reason  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  made  so  great  a  name  in 
the  arts  and  crafts  that  his  achievements  in  this  field  have  thrown  his 
work  as  a  painter  in  the  shade.  There  was  a  time,  however,  when 
his  paintings  and  water  colors  at  the  exhibitions  of  the  National 
Academy,  the  Society  of  American  Artists  and  the  New  York  Water 
Color  Society  were  recognized  as  the  work  of  a  colorist  by  those  who 
know  enough  to  value  the  rare  gifts  of  an  eye  for  color  and  a  hand 
capable  of  making  color  sing  from  the  canvas. 

It  was  with  this  uncommon  endowment,  so  generally  misunderstood, 
that  he  turned  to  forms  of  art  which  demand  color-feeling  in  an  artist 
even  more  than  does  oil-painting;  for  they  offer  no  methods  of  getting 
round  the  issue  as  oil-painting  can  be  made  to  do  for  the  near-colorist. 
Mosaics  that  admit  of  no  shadows  and  confused  lines,  glass  through 
which  the  light  shines  revealingly,  textiles  that  are  moved  about  in  this 
or  that  light,  these  are  things  that  test  an  artist  on  the  color-side  and 
permit  of  no  evasion.  In  the  queer,  half-conscious  art  faith  of  the 
artist,  such  works  rank  far  below  the  painted  canvas;  in  their  unwritten 
book  of  nobility  the  workmen  in  the  arts  and  crafts  are  mere  bons 
bourgeois,  while  they  are  the  upper  crust.  Without  reasoning  on  the 
matter,  they  take  opinions  ready-made  like  the  generality  of  people  and 
learn  from  their  school  days  that  the  painters  of  easel  pictures  form  the 
aristocracy  of  the  profession.  Without  going  farther  into  the  matter 
and  showing  historically  and  sociologically  how  this  odd  situation 
among  painters  has  come  about,  let  us  merely  note  that  Tiffany  was  too 
intelligent  an  artist  to  be  thus  deceived  and  being  naturally  of  an 
inventive  turn  of  mind,  proceeded  to  devote  himself  to  other  lines  of 
work  which  called  upon  his  talent  with  even  greater  force. 

It  has  been  told  how  stained  glass  fascinated  him  and  how  he  helped 
to  place  that  exquisite  form  of  art  expression  again  before  the  world 
with  a  richness  and  magnificence  of  color  only  to  be  equalled  by  the 
men  of  the  thirteenth  century,  who  filled  the  great  bays  of  Gothic  aisles 

76 


AFTERWORD 


and  chancels  with  splendor,  so  that  America,  not  Europe,  now  makes 
stained  glass  for  true  connoisseurs.  Out  of  this  school  of  American 
painters  in  glass  came,  thanks  to  Tiffany’s  inventive  mind,  the  small  glass 
objects  like  the  Favrile  and  other  styles,  together  with  a  variety  of  objects 
in  glass  too  many  for  anything  but  a  catalogue.  Glazes  on  pottery  claimed 
much  of  his  time  during  certain  years;  enamels  on  copper  were  brought 
to  public  notice;  jewelry  of  an  original  and  individual  kind  found  and 
still  finds  a  big  circle  of  admirers.  Indeed,  as  time  went  on,  the 
number  of  different  art-works  to  which  he  gave  attention  became  so 
great  that  it  seemed  marvelous  that  one  man,  however  well  supported 
by  capable  assistants,  could  find  the  waking  hours  in  which  to  keep 
track  of  them  all.  No  one  could  have  done  it  all  except  a  person  who 
could  double  his  existence  as  a  creative  artist  with  the  life  of  a  business 
man. 

A  vast  amount  of  work  was  turned  out  in  the  quarters  of  the  Tiffany 
Glass  Company  at  Fourth  Avenue  and  Twenty-Fifth  Street,  but  when  he 
moved  his  art  shops  to  Madison  Avenue  and  Forty-Fifth  Street,  taking 
possession  of  the  building  erected  for  the  Knickerbocker  Athletic  Club, 
the  supervision  of  so  great  a  business  by  itself  made  demands  on  the 
nerves  which  might  seem  enough  for  any  man  without  the  addition 
thereto  of  individual  exertion. 

Yet  all  this  while  Mr.  Tiffany  was  so  far  from  neglecting  home  life 
under  the  stress  of  business  plus  creative  art  in  the  various  fields  of  his 
endeavor  that  he  found  time  to  plan  and  carefully  carry  out  no  less  than 
four  homes  in  succession.  Nor  were  these  ordinary  dwellings.  Each 
apartment  was  the  result  of  intense  application  as  to  its  general  scheme, 
and  every  part  of  each  room  was  studied  for  its  color-scheme,  the 
lighting  by  day  and  night,  and  the  disposal  of  art  objects  of  the  greatest 
beauty  and  value.  As  to  the  two  country  houses  as  parts  of  the 
landscape,  the  matter  has  been  treated  in  the  last  chapter.  His  delight 
in  flowers  has  resulted  in  great  attention  to  the  growing  of  native  and 
exotic  plants,  some  for  their  blossoms,  others  for  their  frondage.  We 

77 


AFTERWORD 


may  fairly  ask,  how  could  he  have  made  the  time  to  attend  to  all  these 
things  in  town  and  out  of  town?  It  is  true  that  he  has  denied  himself 
distant  travels.  He  has  not  yet  visited  Japan  and  India,  though  the  pull 
in  that  direction  must  always  have  been  very  strong. 

It  is  about  half  a  century  ago  that  he  showed  in  his  art  the  influence 

4 

of  the  Orient,  yet  Turkey  and  Algiers  are  the  only  parts  of  the  East 
that  he  has  studied  on  the  spot,  so  far.  In  one  sense  his  life  may  be 
said  to  have  been  uneventful,  if  we  speak  from  the  traveler’s  point  of 
view,  but  not  so  if  we  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  the  artist  and 
inventor.  It  can  never  be  said  of  him  that  a  rolling  stone  gathers  no 
moss.  When  we  think  of  the  silent  effect  produced  in  a  thousand 
families,  and  in  more  museums  than  could  easily  be  named,  by  the 
inspiring  art-works  he  has  produced,  we  can  say  sincerely  that  he  has 
deserved  well  of  the  republic. 


THE  END 


INDEX 


i 


INDEX 


Academies,  prejudices  imbibed  from,  xvii 
Academy  of  Design,  National,  5,  8,  9,  76 
Africa,  Leon  Belly’s  travels  in  northern,  8; 
his  superb  views  from,  8;  mosaic  pavements 
surviving  in  different  parts  of  northern,  48 
Aholiab,  son  of  Ahisamach  of  the  tribe  of 
Dan,  and  an  expert  in  textiles,  41 
Alchemists,  methods  and  materials  of,  xx 
Algiers,  travel  in,  xvii;  shelves  set  with 
spoils  from,  56;  art  studies  of  Louis  C. 
Tiffany  in,  78 

Amateurs,  restricted  public  of,  xviii 
America,  existing  art  conditions  in,  xvii;  so- 
called  colonial  architecture  in,xxii;  Tiffany 
realizes  possibilities  of  stained  glass  as  new 
field  of  delightful  work  in,  16;  modern 
methods  of  producing  stained  glass  in,  18, 
19;  now  makes  stained  glass  for  true  con¬ 
noisseurs,  77.  See  United  States 
America,  North.  See  North  America 
American  Artists,  Society  of,  5,  9,  76 
American  Indians.  See  Indians 
American  Water  Color  Society,  5,  8,  76 
Amsterdam,  charm  of  water  spaces  of,  70 
Andromache,  in  Greek  legend,  wife  of  Hec¬ 
tor,  41 

Angelo,  Michael  (Michelangelo  Buonarroti), 
Italian  sculptor,  painter,  architect  and 
poet,  xxi 

Architects,  erroneous  conventions  of,  xvii 
Architectural  league,  establishment  of,  9 


Architecture,  so-called  colonial,  in  America, 
xxii;  use  of  mural  painting  as  adornment 
of,  xxiv;  Louis  C.  Tiffany  enchanted  by 
broad  masses  of  Moslem,  9;  age  of  splen¬ 
dor  of  Gothic,  15;  deplorable  effect  of 
certain  prejudices  on  American  church,  22; 
profoundly  affected  by  motives  taken 
originally  from  woven  goods,  39,  70;  use 
of  neutral  tints  in,  43 ;  Hunt’s  protest 
against  so-called  classicism  in,  71,  72.  See 
Gothic  Architecture ,  Landscape  Architec¬ 
ture ,  Romanesque  style ,  Moslem  Architecture 
Art,  workers  in  various  fields  of,  xv;  activi¬ 
ties  in,  xvi;  conditions  affecting,  xvi;  effect 
of  too  narrow  an  estimate  of  world-wide 
mystery  of,  xvi;  natural  and  normal  error 
of  painters  and  sculptors  with  regards  to, 
xvi;  illuminating  influence  of,  as  practised 
by  craftsmen  of  Orient,  xvi,  xvii;  gap 
between  people  and  objects  of  pure,  xviii; 
objects  of,  without  practical  end  in  them¬ 
selves,  xviii;  beginnings  of  what  fairly  may 
be  termed,  xviii;  difficulty  of  drawing  line 
between  non-esthetic  and  esthetic,  xix;  air 
of  mystery  surrounding  production  of 
work  of,  xix;  demands  of,  xx;  elements 
entering  into  the  making  of  a  work  of, 
xx,  xxi;  theories  as  to  rise  and  growth 
of,  xxii;  preposterous  forms  of,  xxii; 
effects  of  the  popularizing  of,  xxiv.  See 
Greek  Art 


81 


INDEX 


Artists,  fellow,  of  Louis  C.  Tiffany,  xv; 
character  and  output  of,  xvi;  effect  upon, 
of  too  exclusive  belief  in  what  is  termed 
the  fine  arts,  xvi;  movement  felt  by  West¬ 
ern,  xvii;  of  the  Renaissance,  xvii;  degrees 
established  among,  xvii;  craftsmen  nearer 
to  the  people  than,  xvii,  xviii;  air  of 
mystery  surrounding  work  of,  xix;  earlier, 
not  behindhand  in  magnifying  their  office, 
xx;  rarely  examiners  of  their  own  mental 
processes,  xx;  elements  entering  into  work 
of,  xx,  xxi;  some  deep-lying  need  supplied 
by,  xxi;  seem  to  have  appeared  in  families 
and  clans,  xxi;  abolition  of  old  limitations 
imposed  by,  xxiv;  colorists  antagonized 
and  decried  by  certain,  15;  things  of  use 
made  beautiful  by,  28;  queer,  half-conscious 
art  faith  of,  76.  See  Colorists ,  Landscape 
Architects.,  Painters,  Pastelists,  Plein-airists , 
Sculptors 

Arts,  Master  of.  See  Master  of  Arts 
Art  Schools,  prejudices  imbibed  from,  xvii; 

decline  of,  xxiii;  earlier  traditions  of,  8 
Arts  Decoratifs,  Musee  des,  Paris,  32 
Asia,  children  employed  in  manual  drudgery 
of  loom  in,  42 

Asia  Minor,  ancient  temples  of,  67 
Athene,  in  Greek  Mythology,  the  goddess  of 
wisdom  and  war,  xix;  young  girls  make 
peplos  offered  every  four  years  to,  42 
Athenians,  deities  of  ancient,  xxii 
Athens,  young  girls  make  peplos  offered  every 
four  years  to  Pallas  Athene  in  ancient,  42 

Barbizon,  French  village,  noted  as  haunt  of 
group  of  painters,  1 5 

Barrett,  N.  F.,  American  landscape  archi¬ 
tect,  71 

Bauer,  Theodore,  colored  plaster-cast  relief 
by,  60 

Beauvais,  heavy  leads  and  thick,  dark-toned 
panes  in  cathedral  of,  17 


Beaux  Arts,  Ecole  des,  Paris,  71 
Beaux  Arts,  Societe  Nationales  des,  10 
Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  American  Congrega¬ 
tional  clergyman,  lecturer,  reformer  and 
author,  3 1 

Belgians,  dark  blue  decorations  of  wood  laid 
on  skins  of  early,  xviii 
Bella,  The,  Louis  C.  Tiffany’s  New  York 
apartments,  55-57,  68 
Belly,  Leon,  French  artist,  8 
Berzaleel,  son  of  Uri  of  the  tribe  of  Judah, 
andanexpert  in  metal workandcarpentry, 41 
Boldini,  Andrea,  worked  in  glass,  19 
Book-lovers,  combination  of  books  and  open 
fireplace  commends  itself  to,  57 
Boston,  Massachusetts,  society  of  landscape 
architects  in,  67 

Breton,  Jules  Adolphe  Aime  Louis,  French 
painter,  8 

Briars,  The,  country  home  of  Louis  C.  Tif¬ 
fany  on  Long  Island,  61,  69 
Bric-a-brac,  shelves  containing  admired  speci¬ 
mens  57 

Britain,  Great.  See  Great  Britain 
Britons,  dark  blue  decorations  of  wood  laid 
on  skins  of  early,  xviii 
Brooklyn,  Louis  C.  Tiffany’s  inventions  and 
experiments  in  stained  glass  in,  19;  double 
window  of  stained  glass  executed  by  Louis 
C.  Tiffany  for  church  in,  20 
Buonarroti,  Michelangelo.  See  Angelo 
Butler,  George  B.,  American  artist,  5 
Byzantines,  glass  windows  on  small  scale  used 
by,  16 

Byzantium,  enamels  of,  studied  by  Louis  C. 
Tiffany,  33,  34 

Caesars  (Roman  emperors),  myrrhine  glass¬ 
ware  held  in  high  esteem  under,  25 
Canada,  revival  of  so-called  colonial  archi¬ 
tecture  in,  xxiii 

Cathedral  of  St.  John  the  Divine,  47,  49 


82 


INDEX 


Cellini, Benvenuto, Italian  sculptor  and  worker 
in  gold  and  silver,  xxi 

Cennini,  Cennino,  early  Italian  authority  on 
colored  glass,  17,  18,  20 
Central  Park,  New  York  City,  59,  68 
Century  Club,  Louis  C.  Tiffany  elected  to,  8 
Chartres,  heavy  leads  and  thick,  dark-toned 
panes  in  cathedral  of,  17 
Chemistry, intimate  connection  between  paint¬ 
ing  and,  xx 

Chevalier  of  Legion  of  Honor,  Louis  C. 

Tiffany  receives  title  of,  10,  11,  21 
China,  travel  in,  xvii;  early  art  centres  of,  xxi; 
enamels  of,  studied  by  Louis  C.  Tiffany, 
33;  stately  and  sober-toned  rugs  and  car¬ 
pets  of,  42 

Christ  Church,  Fairfield,  Connecticut,  stained 
glass  by  Louis  C.  Tiffany  in,  22 
Church  of  England,  22 

Church  of  the  Pilgrims,  Brooklyn,  double 
window  of  stained  glass  executed  by  Louis 
C.  Tiffany  for,  20 
Civil  War,  American,  5 

“Cobblers  at  Boufarik,”  genre  picture  by 
Louis  C.  Tiffany,  9 

Colman,  Samuel,  American  artist,  5;  his  art 
compared  with  that  of  Inness,  7;  of  a 
Swedenborgian  family,  7;  his  birth,  7; 
exhibits  for  the  first  time,  7;  travels  in 
Europe,  7;  Tuckerman’s  appreciation  of, 
7;  holds  sale  of  his  pictures,  7;  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  Society  of  American 
Artists,  9 

Color,  remarks  on  use  of,  in  the  arts,  75, 
76 

Colorists,  epoch  of,  in  Holland,  15;  appear¬ 
ance  of,  in  France,  15;  antagonized  and 
decried  by  certain  artists  and  critics,  1 5;  exal¬ 
tation  of,  16;  Louis  C.  Tiffany  belongs  with 
painters  embraced  under  broad  term  of,  75; 
United  States  have  had  more  than  their 
share  of  painters  who  come  under  head  of,  75 


Connoisseurs,  restricted  public  of,  xviii; 
America,  not  Europe,  now  makes  stained 
glass  for  true,  77 

Cooper,  James  Fenimore,  American  novel¬ 
ist,  61 

Corona,  Long  Island,  glasshouse,  established 
at,  by  Louis  C.  Tiffany,  19,  20 

Corot,  Jean  Baptiste  Camille,  French  painter,  19 

Craftsmanship,  Louis  C.  Tiffany’s  earlier 
years,  devoted  to  painting,  not  to,  xvi 

Craftsmen,  illuminating  influence  of  art  as 
practised  by  Oriental,  xvi,  xvii;  many 
painters  and  sculptors  begin  as,  xvii;  nearer 
to  the  people  than  the  artist,  xvii,  xviii; 
mystery  plays  given  by,  in  Middle  Ages,xix 

Crusades,  the,  expeditions  undertaken  by 
Christians  of  Europe  for  recovery  of  Holy 
Land  from  Mohammedans,  16 

Da  Vinci,  Leonardo.  See  Vinci 

Dead  Sea,  Leon  Belly’s  impressive  canvas 
representing  the,  8 

Decamps,  Alexandre  Gabriel,  French  pain¬ 
ter,  9 

Decoration,  special  studies  of  Louis  C. 
Tiffany  in,  xxv 

Delacroix,  Ferdinand  Victor  Eugene,  French 
painter,  15 

Diaz,  Porfirio,  Mexican  general,  statesman 
and  ex-president,  51 

Diodorus,  surnamed  Siculus,  Greek  his¬ 
torian,  67 

Downing,  Andrew  Jackson,  American  land¬ 
scape  gardener  and  pomologist,  71 

D  iirer,  Albrecht,  German  painter  and  en¬ 
graver,  xxi 

East,  parts  of  the,  studied  by  Louis  C. 
Tiffany,  78 

Eaton,  Wyatt,  American  painter,  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  Society  of  American  Ar¬ 
tists,  9 


INDEX 


Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts,  Paris,  71 
Egypt,  Leon  Belly’s  travels  in,  8  ;  fame  of 
ancient,  for  woven  goods,  41 
Eleusis,  secret  ritual  of  certain  Greeks  prac¬ 
tised  notably  at,  xix 

El  Greco,  surname  of  Domenico  Theoto- 
copuli,  Spanish  painter,  architect  and 
sculptor,  xxi 

Enamelers,  similarity  in  methods  and  mate¬ 
rials  of  alchemists  and,  xx 
Enamels,  work  of  Louis  C.  Tiffany  in,  xxv, 
77;  synthetic  treatment  of,  31;  original, 
designed  by  Louis  C.  Tiffany,  32  et  seq.; 
form  permanent  exhibits  in  many  mu¬ 
seums,  32 

England,  brown  tones  for  figure  scenes  and 
landscape  conventionally  accepted  for  a 
century  in,  xxiii ;  fundamental  quality 
lacking  in  stained  glass  of,  1  5 
Episcopal  Church  of  the  United  States,  22 
Esthetics,  tendency  to  establish  system  of 
caste  in  realm  of,  xviii 
Etching  Club,  New  York,  9 
Europe,  artists  of  Renaissance  in,  xvii ;  ex¬ 
isting  art  conditions  in,  xvii;  fundamental 
quality  lacking  in  stained  glass  of,  15; 
neglect  of  stained  glass  as  branch  of  art 
in,  16;  window  glass  as  we  know  it  at¬ 
tributable  to  people  of  northern,  16;  loca¬ 
tion  of  Kelts  and  Teutons  in,  17;  earliest 
glass  imported  by  Phoenicians  in  northern, 
17;  development  of  stained  and  trans¬ 
parent  glass  in,  17;  mosaic  pavements 
surviving  in  different  parts  of,  48 
Europeans,  figures  of  animals  drawn  and 
carved  by  ancestors  of  earliest,  xviii 

Favrile  Glass,  various  experiments  by  Louis 
C.  Tiffany  result  in  production  of,  25,  77; 
its  remarkable  shapes,  brilliant  colors,  and 
manifold  uses,  26  ;  success  of,  brings  imi¬ 
tations,  26 ;  further  experiments  in,  26,  27  ; 


vies  in  beauty  with  antique  glass,  27;  used 
in  production  of  a  thousand  articles  of 
applied  art,  27;  happy  influence  of  these 
upon  the  public  taste,  27,  28  ;  articles  of, 
form  permanent  exhibits  in  many  mu¬ 
seums,  32  ;  rich  specimens  of,  59 
Fine  Arts,  effect  of  too  exclusive  belief  in 
what  is  termed,  xvi ;  natural  and  normal 
error  of  painters  and  sculptors  with  regard 
to,  xvi ;  obstinate  devotion  to  some  one 
of  the,  xvii;  so-called  objects  of  the,  xviii; 
apparent  exclusiveness  and  aristocracy  in, 
xviii;  effect  of  changed  conditions  upon, 
xxiv 

Florence,  Ghirlandaios  of,  origin  of  name,  xvii 
Floriculture,  Louis  C.  Tiffany  for  many  years 
interested  in,  xxv 

Fontainebleau,  gardens  of,  compared  with 
those  of  Versailles,  69 

Forum,  The,  Louis  C.  Tiffany  contributes 
article  “American  Art  Supreme  in  Colored 
Glass”  to,  20,  25 

“Four  Seasons,  The,”  stained  glass  window 
by  Louis  C.  Tiffany,  20 
France,  handbooks  used  by  artist-artisans 
of,  in  seventeenth  century,  xx ;  brown 
tones  for  figure  scenes  and  landscape  con¬ 
ventionally  accepted  for  a  century  in,  xxiii; 
destruction  of  power  of  caste  in,  xxiii,  xxiv; 
status  of  writer  and  artist  in,  xxiv;  funda¬ 
mental  quality  lacking  in  stained  glass  of, 
15;  appearance  of  colorists  in,  15 
Fuller,  George,  American  painter,  75 
Furniture,  modern,  of  Germany,  xxii;  effect 
of  changed  art  conditions  upon  production 
of,  xxiv 

Germany,  modern  furniture  of,  xxii ;  brown 
tones  for  figure  scenes  and  landscape  con¬ 
ventionally  accepted  for  a  century  in,  xxiii; 
fundamental  quality  lacking  in  stained 
glass  of,  1  5 


INDEX 


Ghirlandaios  of  Florence,  origin  of  name, 
xvii 

Glass,  origin  and  development  of,  16  et  seq.; 
ancient,  of  Chinese,  Venetian,  Bohemian, 
British  make,  25;  myrrhine,  held  in  high 
esteem  under  Caesars,  25  ;  ancient  Greek 
and  Roman,  subjected  to  disintegrating 
effects  of  burial,  27  ;  effects  produced  on 
ancient,  by  burial  underground  for  cen¬ 
turies,  63.  See  Favrile  Glass ,  Stained 
Glass 

Glass-makers,  similarity  in  methods  and 
materials  of  alchemists  and,  xx 
Goethe,  Johann  Wolfgang  von,  German 
poet,  dramatist  and  prose-writer,  35 
Goldsmith,  Louis  C.  Tiffany  son  of  man 
who  established  his  name  the  world  over 
as  jeweler  and,  xvi;  Ghirlandaios  receive 
name  from  proficiency  of  first  of  family  in 
work  of,  xvii 

Gothic  Architecture,  age  of  splendor  of,  15; 
cathedral  of  St.  John  the  Divine  changed 
from  Romanesque  to,  47 
Gray,  Henry  Peters,  American  painter,  75 
Great  Britain,  “  natural  ”  garden  comes  into 
favor  in,  70.  See  England 
Greco,  El.  See  El  Greco 
Greece,  ancient  temples  of,  67 
Greek  Art,  lavish  use  of  colors  in,  71 
Greeks,  secret  ritual  of,  practised  notably  at 
Eleusis,  xix;  clothing  an  indication  of  rank 
among  ancient,  40 ;  great  trade  of  early, 
in  textile  goods,  carpets,  hangings  and 
shawls,  42 

Grotesques,  childish  and  insincere,  xviii 
Guatemala,  decorative  designs  of  temples, 
palaces  and  communal  houses  in,  39 

Harper  s  Monthly ,  extracts  from  contribu¬ 
tion  of  George  Inness  to,  6,  7 
Havemeyer,  Henry  O.,  mosaic  work  by 
Tiffany  in  home  of  late,  50 


Hector,  in  Greek  legend,  son  of  Priam  and 
Hecuba,  and  champion  of  the  Trojans,  41 
Helen,  in  Greek  legend,  wife  of  Menelaos, 
abducted  by  Paris,  41 

Hindus,  marks  made  on  faces  by  high-caste, 
xviii ;  the  peacock  held  in  high  esteem 
by,  49 

Hindustan,  carved  wood  from,  58 
Holland,  epoch  of  colorists  in,  15 
Homer,  Greek  poet,  traditional  author  of 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  and  of  certain  hymns 
to  the  gods,  40 

Homer,  Winslow,  American  artist,  5 
House  Building,  much  attention  given  by 
Louis  C.  Tiffany  to,  xxv 
Hunt,  William  Morris,  American  painter,  7,71 

Imperial  Society  of  Fine  Arts,  Tokio,  10 
India,  travel  in,  xvii;  the  peacock  imported 
from,  by  nations  bordering  on  Medi¬ 
terranean,  49 

Indians,  American,  significance  of  use  of 
paint  by,  xix ;  preposterous  forms  of  art 
among,  xxii 

Inness,  George,  American  artist,  Louis  C. 
Tiffany  haunts  studio  of,  5 ;  peculiarly 
fitted  to  rouse  interest  of  pupil,  5  ;  his 
incisive,  outspoken  views  on  art,  5,  6 ; 
influenced  by  teachings  of  Swedenborg,  6; 
extracts  from  his  contribution  to  Harper  s 
Monthly ,  6,  7  ;  did  not  give  instruction  in 
painting,  7  ;  had  a  good  deal  of  William 
Morris  Hunt’s  inspiriting  quality,  7  ;  was 
a  colorist  and  as  such  appealed  to  Tiffany, 
7,  75  ;  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Society 
of  American  Artists,  9 
Ireland,  clothing  an  indication  of  rank  among 
Kelts  of,  40 

“  Irvington,  In  the  Fields  at,”  scene  from 
domestic  life,  painted  by  Louis  C.  Tiffany, 
10 

Italian  Renaissance.  See  Renaissance 


85 


INDEX 


Italy,  brown  tones  for  figure  scenes  and 
landscape  conventionally  accepted  for  a 
century  in,  xxiii ;  fundamental  quality  lack¬ 
ing  in  stained  glass  of,  15;  ancient  tem¬ 
ples  of,  67;  formal  garden  derives  its  an¬ 
cestry  from,  70 

Ixtaccihuatl,  extinct  volcano  in  Mexico,  re¬ 
produced  in  mosaic  by  Tiffany,  50 

Japan,  travel  in,  xvii ;  early  art  centres  of, 
xxi ;  enamels  of,  studied  by  Louis  C. 
Tiffany,  33,  34;  lavish  use  of  colors  in 
modern,  71 

Jeweler,  Louis  C.  Tiffany  son  of  man  who 
established  his  name  the  world  over  as 
goldsmith  and,  xvi 

Jewelry,  work  of  Louis  C.  Tiffany  in,  xxv, 
32  et  seq.,  77;  use  of  neutral  tints  in,  43. 
See  Precious  Stones 

Jewels, original, designed  by  Louis  C. Tiffany, 
32  et  seq.;  form  permanent  exhibits  in 
many  museums,  32 

Jews,  urged  by  Moses  to  bring  material  to 
form  the  tabernacle,  41 

Joseph,  in  Old  Testament  history,  son  of 
Jacob  and  Rachel,  40 

Juno,  in  Roman  mythology,  the  queen  of 
heaven,  10,  49 

Kelts,  predecessors  of  Teutons  in  Europe, 
1 7;  clothing  an  indication  of  rank  among, 40 

Keramics,  quaint  Oriental,  56 

Laertes,  in  Greek  legend,  father  of  Odysseus 
(Ulysses),  41 

La  Farge,  John,  American  painter,  decorator 
and  sculptor,  xvii,  9,  34,  75 

Landscape  Architects,  societies  of,  in  New 
York  City  and  Boston,  67;  more  or  less 
at  mercy  of  architects,  68  ;  should  be  ar¬ 
tists  in  the  highest  sense,  68  ;  two  camps 
formed  among,  70 


Landscape  Architecture,  much  attention 
given  by  Louis  C.  Tiffany  to,  xxv ;  defi¬ 
nition  of,  67 ;  its  development  into  an  inde¬ 
pendent  profession,  67;  Louis  C.  Tiffany’s 
achievements  in  field  of,  68  et  seq. 
Landscape  Gardening.  See  Landscape  Archi¬ 
tecture 

Laurelton  Hall,  Long  Island,  from  first  to 
last  the  house  of  Louis  C.  Tiffany,  62-64, 
69  et  seq. 

Legion  of  Honor,  Louis  C.  Tiffany  receives 
title  of  Chevalier  of,  10,  1 1 
Lighting,  special  studies  of  Louis  C.  Tiffany 
in,  xxv 

London,  mosaic  fire-curtain  in  opera  house 
of  City  of  Mexico  unknown  to  playgoers 
of,  50 ;  relation  of  river  Thames  to,  70 
Long  Island,  land-locked  harbors  of,  xv ; 
Louis  C.  Tiffany’s  country  houses  on,  61 
et  seq. 

Lyceum  Theatre,  New  York,  decorated  by 
Louis  C.  Tiffany,  51 

McKim,  Mead  &  White,  Messrs.,  Amer¬ 
ican  architects,  57,  58 

Madison  Avenue,  New  York,  house  of  Louis 
C.  Tiffany  on,  57-61 

Malbone,  Edward  G.,  American  painter,  75 
Martin,  Homer  D.,  American  painter,  9,  75 
Marvel,  Ik.  See  Mitchell ,  Donald  Grant 
Master  of  Arts,  Louis  C.  Tiffany  receives 
honorary  degree  of,  from  Yale  Univer¬ 
sity,  1 1 

Mediterranean,  window  glass  as  we  know  it 
not  attributable  to  people  of,  16;  the  pea¬ 
cock  beloved  by  nations  bordering  on,  49 
Medusa,  in  Greek  mythology,  one  of  the 
Gorgons,  xix 

Mempes,  Mortimer,  British  artist,  xvii 
Menelaos,  in  Greek  legend,  the  son  of 
Atreus,  brother  of  Agamemnon,  and  hus¬ 
band  of  Helen,  41 


86 


INDEX 


Metropolitan  Life  Building,  New  York,  51 
Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  New  York,  32 
Mexico,  early  art  centres  of,  xxi 
Mexico,  City  of,  largest  single  complete  work 
in  mosaic  designed  by  Tiffany  for  opera 
house  in,  50,  51 
Michelangelo.  See  Angelo 
Middle  Ages,  mystery  plays  given  by  crafts¬ 
men  of,  xix 

Mitchell,  Donald  Grant  (pseudonym,  Ik 
Marvel),  American  essayist  and  novelist,  57 
Monet,  Claude,  French  painter,  xxiii 
Morocco,  travel  in,  xvii 
Mosaic,  work  of  Louis  C.  Tiffany  in,  xxv  ; 
use  of  neutral  tints  in,  43  ;  chapel  in  crypt 
of  Cathedral  of  St.  John  the  Divine 
decorated  by  Tiffany  in,  47  et  seq other 
works  in,  by  Tiffany,  50,  51  ;  admits  of 
no  shadows  and  confused  lines,  76 
Moses,  in  Old  Testament  history,  the  law¬ 
giver  of  the  Israelites  and  organizer  of  the 
Israelitish  nation,  41 

Moslem  Architecture,  Tiffany  enchanted  by 
broad  masses  of,  9 

Munich,  well-known  English  Garden  at,  70 
Musee  des  Arts  decoratifs,  Paris,  32 
Mystery  Plays,  given  by  craftsmen  of  Middle 
Ages,  xix 

Nash,  Arthur  J.,  practical  glass  manufac¬ 
turer,  19 

National  Academy  of  Design,  5,  8,  9,  76 
National  Sculpture  Society,  9 
New  York  City,  unusual  movement  in  art 
matters  in,  9;  mosaic  fire-curtain  in  opera 
house  of  City  of  Mexico  unknown  to 
playgoers  of,  50 ;  society  of  landscape 
architects  in,  67 
New  York  Etching  Club,  9 
New  York  Society  of  Fine  Arts,  9 
New  Zealand,  designs  carved  on  columns, 
shields  and  paddles  by  nations  of,  xix 


North  America,  carved  and  ornamented  stone 
pipes  made  by  tribes  of,  xxi 

Olmsted,  Frederick  Law,  American  land¬ 
scape  architect,  68,  71 

Orient,  illuminating  influence  of  art  as  prac¬ 
tised  by  craftsmen  of,  xvi,  xvii ;  appeal 
made  by  arts  of,  8  ;  Tiffany’s  genre  pic¬ 
tures  from,  9 ;  recognition  of  Tiffany’s 
leaning  toward,  10.  See  East 

Orientals,  character  of,  expressed  in  paintings 
by  Louis  C.  Tiffany,  9 

Painters,  natural  and  normal  error  of,  xvi ; 
erroneous  conventions  of,  xvii ;  degrees 
established  among,  xvii ;  many,  begin  as 
craftsmen,  xvii ;  similarity  in  methods  and 
materials  of  alchemists  and,  xx;  broad¬ 
ening  of  field  for,  xxiv ;  high-sounding 
claims  of  academical,  xxv ;  odd  situation 
among,  76 

Painters  in  Water  Colors,  Society  of,  5 

Painting,  Louis  C.  Tiffany’s  earlier  years 
devoted  to,  xvi ;  intimate  connection  be¬ 
tween  chemistry  and,  xx ;  great  and  in¬ 
creasing  demand  for  mural,  xxiv ;  color 
the  most  important  ingredient  in,  16; 
action  of  sculpture  upon,  39 

Paintings,  meaning  of  early  stainings  and, 
xviii ;  frequently  valued  for  decorative 
effect  alone,  xix;  notable,  by  Louis  C. 
Tiffany,  9,  10;  Venetian,  75 

Palestine,  travel  in,  xvii,  8  ;  Leon  Belly’s 
pictures  of,  8 

Pallas  Athene.  See  Athene 

Paris,  honors  bestowed  upon  Louis  C. 
Tiffany  in,  10,  11,  21;  mosaic  fire-curtain 
in  opera  house  of  City  of  Mexico  un¬ 
known  to  playgoers  of,  50 ;  relation  of 
river  Seine  to,  70 

Paris  Exposition,  1900,  Louis  C.  Tiffany 
wins  gold  medal  and  title  of  Chevalier  of 
Legion  of  Honor  at,  10,  11,  21 


87 


INDEX 


Parthenon,  official  temple  of  Pallas  at  Athens, 
hangings  in,  42 

Pastelists,  attitude  of  other  artists  toward,  xvii 
“Peacock,”  painting  by  Louis  C.  Tiffany,  10 
Peintres  du  Si'ecle ,  Nos.  Jules  Breton  in,  8 
Pelasgians,  great  trade  of,  in  textile  goods, 
carpets,  hangings  and  shawls,  42 
Penelope,  in  Greek  legend,  wife  of  Odysseus 
(Ulysses),  41 

“Peonies,”  painting  by  Louis  C.  Tiffany,  10 
Pericles,  Athenian  statesman  and  orator, 
xxii 

Persia,  travel  in,  xvii 
Pheidias,  Greek  sculptor,  42 
Phoenicians,  earliest  glass  imported  by,  into 
northern  Europe,  17;  great  trade  of,  in 
textile  goods,  carpets,  hangings  and  shawls, 
42 

Plato,  Greek  philosopher,  xxii 
Plein-airists,  obligations  to  science  of,  xx 
Polynesians,  dots,  lines  or  figures  stained  or 
painted  upon  face  or  body  of,  xix 
“Pool,  The,”  painting  by  Louis  C.  Tiffany,  9 
Popocatepetl,  extinct  volcano  in  Mexico,  re¬ 
produced  in  mosaic  by  Tiffany,  50 
Porcelain,  action  of  basketry  upon,  39; 
Chinese,  Persian  and  European,  39;  rare 
Oriental,  59;  Chinese,  75 
Pottery,  work  of  Louis  C.  Tiffany  in,  xxv; 
action  of  basketry  upon,  39;  Chinese,  Per¬ 
sian  and  European,  39;  use  of  neutral 
tints  in,  43  ;  rare  glazes  for,  made  by  Louis 
C.  Tiffany,  72,  77 

Precious  Stones,  synthetic  treatment  of,  3  1 ; 
extraordinary  collections  of,  amassed  by 
Tiffany  &  Company,  33 
Psyche,  in  classical  mythology,  the  beloved 
of  Eros,  10 

Ravenna,  mosaics  surviving  at,  48 
Rembrandt,  Hermanzoon  van  Rijn,  Dutch 
painter  and  etcher,  75 


Renaissance,  artists  of,  xvii;  enamels  of, 
studied  by  Louis  C.  Tiffany,  33,  34;  false 
idea  of  classic  art  grows  up  during  period 
of,  48,  7 1 ;  landscape  gardening  or  landscape 
architecture  as  practised  in  the  Italian,  67 
Richardson,  Henry  Hobson,  American  archi¬ 
tect,  57 

Rodin,  Auguste,  French  sculptor,  xxiii 
Romanesque  Style,  cathedral  of  St.  John 
the  Divine  changed  from,  to  Gothic,  47 
Romans,  definite  rules  as  to  colors  of  toga 
among  ancient,  40 
Rome,  mosaics  surviving  at,  48 
Rugs,  work  of  Louis  C.  Tiffany  in,  xxv 
Ryder,  Albert  P.,  American  painter,  75 

Saint-Gaudens,  Augustus,  American  sculptor, 
one  of  the  founders  of  the  Society  of 
American  Artists,  9 

St.  John  the  Divine,  Cathedral  of,  47,  49 
Salviati,  Dr.,  worker  in  glass,  19 
Sargent,  John  Singer,  American  painter, 
xxiii,  75 

Scotland,  clothing  an  indication  of  rank 
among  Kelts  of,  40 

Sculptors,  natural  and  normal  error  of,  xvi; 
erroneous  conventions  of,  xvii;  many, 
begin  as  craftsmen,  xvii 
Sculpture,  frequently  valued  for  decorative 
effect  alone,  xix;  use  of  color  in,  xxiii; 
use  of  neutral  tints  in,  43 
Sculpture  Society,  National,  9 
Seine  River,  relation  of,  to  Paris,  70 
Seventh  Regiment  Armory,  New  York,  Vet¬ 
erans’  Room  in,  decorated  by  Louis  C. 
Tiffany,  51 

Siculus.  See  Diodorus 
Smillie,  James  D.,  American  painter,  7 
Societe  Nationale  des  Beaux  Arts,  10 
Society  of  American  Artists,  5,  9,  76 
Society  of  Fine  Arts,  New  York,  9 
Society  of  Painters  in  Water  Colors,  5 


88 


INDEX 


Socrates,  Greek  philosopher,  xxii 
Sorolla  y  Bastida,  Joaquin,  Spanish  painter, 
likeness  of  Louis  C.  Tiffany  painted  by, 
xv,  64 

Stained  Glass,  work  of  Louis  C.  Tiffany  in, 
xxv,  76,  77;  Tiffany’s  creations  in,  known 
far  beyond  borders  of  his  own  land,  1 1 ; 
fundamental  quality  lacking  in  European, 
1 5;  color  sense  vital  and  necessary  to  artist 
who  attempts,  16;  a  branch  of  art  neg¬ 
lected,  or  rather  badly  served  in  Europe, 
1 6 ;  invention  of,  16;  directions  for  making, 
by  early  Italian  authority,  17,  18,  20; 
modern  methods  of  producing,  in  America, 
18,  19;  Louis  C.  Tiffany  contributes  to 
Forum ,  article  on  American,  20;  American 
superior  to  mediaeval,  21;  prejudices  cf 
clergymen  and  vestrymen  in  favor  of 
British,  22,  26;  action  of  mosaic  upon,  39 
Stillmann,  T.  E.,  stained  glass  window  exe¬ 
cuted  by  Louis  C.  Tiffany  for,  20 
Stockholm,  charm  of  water  spaces  of,  70 
Stones,  Precious.  See  Precious  Stones 
“Street  Scene  in  Algiers,”  genre  picture  by 
Louis  C.  Tiffany,  9 
Stuart,  Gilbert,  American  painter,  75 
“Studio, The, ’’painting  by  Louis C. Tiffany,  10 
Swedenborg,  Emanuel,  Swedish  philosopher 
and  theosophist,  6 

Tapestries,  work  of  Louis  C.  Tiffany  in,  xxv 
Tattoo  Marks,  significance  of,  xviii,  xix 
Teutons,  location  of,  in  Europe,  17 
Textiles,  Louis  C.  Tiffany’s  work  in,  42,  43; 
Oriental  keramics  and,  56 ;  designs  for  solid 
stone  and  brick  buildings  copied  from,  70; 
Persian,  75;  test  an  artist  on  the  color-side 
and  permit  of  no  evasion,  76.  See  Rugs , 
Tapestries 

Thames  River,  relation  of,  to  London,  70 
Tiepolo,  Giovanni  Battista,  Venetian  painter, 
5° 


Tiffany,  Charles  Lewis,  name  of,  established 
the  world  over  as  goldsmith  and  jeweler, 
xvi;  business  built  up  by,  xvi;  his  great 
success,  xvi;  birth  of  his  son,  Louis  C. 
Tiffany,  5;  his  great  ability  inherited  by 
his  son,  32 

Tiffany,  Louis  Comfort,  volume  written  for 
children  of,  xv;  his  fellow  artists,  xv;  son 
of  man  who  established  his  name  the  world 
over  as  goldsmith  and  jeweler,  xvi;  his 
earlier  years  devoted  to  painting,  xvi;  this 
period  marked  by  reaction  against  com¬ 
mercial  element,  xvi;  sees  the  world,  xvi; 
influence  upon,  of  art  of  Oriental  crafts¬ 
men,  xvi,  xvii,  34;  public  taste  profoundly 
affected  by,  xxiv;  xxv;  his  notable  work 
in  many  branches  of  art,  xxv;  his  birth 
and  bringing  up,  5;  at  school  when  Civil 
War  was  fought,  5;  feels  longing  for 
expression,  which  indicates  the  coming 
artist,  5;  haunts  studios  of  Inness  and 
Colman,  5;  admires  and  visits  Leon  Belly 
of  Paris,  8;  studies  hard  under  Bail ly,  8; 
elected  to  the  Century  Club,  8;  accepted 
as  Associate  of  National  Academy  of 
Design,  8;  marries  Miss  Mary  Wood- 
bridge  Goddard,  8;  member  of,  and  con¬ 
tributor  to,  American  Water  Color  Society, 
8;  enrages  “legitimate”  water  colorists  by 
using  body  color  freely,  8;  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  Society  of  American 
Artists,  9;  elected  National  Academician; 
9;  works  out  some  of  his  ideas  in  other 
mediums  than  oils  and  water  colors,  9; 
enchanted  by  broad  masses  of  Moslem 
architecture  in  Algiers,  9;  his  work  as 
painter,  9  et  seq.;  elected  to  membership 
in  Imperial  Society  of  Fine  Arts  inTokio, 
10;  becomes  member  of  Societe  Nationale 
des  Beaux  Arts  in  Paris,  10;  wins  gold 
medal  and  title  of  Chevalier  of  Legion  of 
Honor  at  Paris  Exposition  of  1900,  10, 


89 


INDEX 


1 1,  21;  receives  honorary  degree  of  Master 
of  Arts  from  Yale  University,  11;  his 
work  as  colorist  prepares  the  way  for  his 
notable  creations  in  stained  glass,  11; 
realizes  possibilities  of  stained  glass  as  new 
field  of  delightful  work  in  America,  16; 
his  inventions  and  achievements  in  that 
field,  19  et  seq.,  76,  77;  various  experi¬ 
ments  by,  result  in  production  of  favrile 
glass,  25  et  seq.;  his  favrile  glass  vies  in 
beauty  with  antique  glass,  27;  his  taste  in 
color  finds  expression  in  a  thousand  articles 
of  applied  art,  27 ;  happy  influence  of  these 
upon  the  public  taste,  27,  28;  enjoys  exercis¬ 
ing  his  faculties  and  taste  in  designing  rare 
and  beautiful  things,  3  1, 32  ;  foremost  expo¬ 
nent  of  arts  and  crafts  in  America,  32; 
enameled  objects  and  personal  jewelry 
designed  by,  33  et  seq.;  his  paintings  of 
roses,  rhododendrons  and  paeonies,  34; 
devotes  a  few  hours  a  day  to  enamels  and 
jewelry,  35;  value  of  his  efforts  to  the 
public,  35;  his  work  in  the  field  of  textiles, 
42,  43;  master  of  gamut  of  colors  in  most 
diverse  branches  of  art,  43;  educational 
influence  of  his  work  upon  the  public,  43; 
chapel  in  crypt  of  Cathedral  of  St.  John 
the  Divine  decorated  in  mosaic  by,  47  et 
seq.;  other  works  in  mosaic  by,  50,  51; 
how  he  transformed  the  Bella  apartments, 
55-57;  house  of,  on  Madison  Avenue, 
described,  57-61;  his  country  home,  The 
Briars,  on  Long  Island,  61;  buys  more 
property  and  lays  out  plans  for  spacious 
country  house,  outbuildings  and  grounds, 
61,  62;  Laurelton  Hall,  from  first  to  last, 
the  house  of,  62-64;  his  achievements  in 
the  field  of  landscape  architecture,  68  et 
seq.;  rare  glazes  for  pottery  made  by,  72; 
belongs  with  painters  embraced  under 
broad  term  of  colorists,  75,  76;  his  work 
as  painter  overshadowed  by  his  achieve¬ 


ments  in  the  field  of  arts  and  crafts,  76; 
his  paintings  at  the  exhibitions,  76;  his 
uncommon  endowment  prompts  him  to 
turn  from  painting  to  other  forms  of 
art,  76;  creative  artist  and  business  man, 
77;  moves  his  art  shops  to  Madison 
Avenue  and  Forty-fifth  Street,  77;  so  far 
from  neglecting  home  life  that  he  has 
planned  four  homes  in  succession,  77; 
his  delight  in  flowers,  77;  influence  of  the 
Orient  upon  his  art,  78;  silent  effect  pro¬ 
duced  by  his  inspiring  art-works,  78;  de¬ 
serves  well  of  the  republic,  78 
Tiffany  &  Company,  great  building  of,  on 
Fifth  Avenue,  32;  extraordinary  collec¬ 
tions  of  gems  and  colored  stones  amassed 
bY>  33 

Tiffany  Furnaces,  origin  of,  19;  change  of 
title  to,  20 

Tiffany  Glass  Company,  vast  amount  of 
work  turned  out  by,  77 
Tiffany  Studios,  stained  glass  windows  for 
churches,  public  buildings  and  homes  de¬ 
signed  in,  22;  largest  single  complete  work 
in  mosaic  issues  from,  50 
Tokio,  honor  bestowed  upon  Louis  C.  Tif¬ 
fany  in,  10 

Topsy,  an  amusing  negro  girl  in  “Uncle 
Tom’s  Cabin,”  by  Harriet  BeecherStowe,6o 
Trattato  della  Pittura,  early  Italian  work  on 
colored  glass,  17,  18 

Tuckerman,  Henry  Theodore,  American 
critic,  essayist  and  poet,  7 
Turkey,  art  studies  of  Louis  C.  Tiffany  in,  78 

United  States,  revival  of  so-called  colonial 
architecture  in,  xxiii;  destruction  of  power 
of  caste  in,  xxiii,  xxiv;  status  of  writer  and 
artist  in,  xxiv;  the  formal  and  the  natural 
garden  in,  71;  have  had  more  than  their 
share  of  painters  who  come  under  head  of 
colorists,  75 


90 


INDEX 


“Valiant  Woman, The,”  stained  glass  window 
by  Louis  C.  Tiffany,  20 
Vaux,  Calvert,  Anglo-American  landscape 
architect,  68,  71 

Vedder,  Elihu,  American  artist,  5 
Velasquez,  Diego  Rodriguez  de  Silva,  Spanish 
painter,  75 

Venetians,  figures  of  gold  foil  imprisoned  in 
bottom  of  drinking  cups  by  old,  27 
Venice,  charm  of  water  spaces  of,  70 
Versailles,  gardens  of,  compared  with  those  of 
Fontainebleau,  69 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum,  South  Ken¬ 
sington,  London,  32 

Vienna,  Tiffany  favrile  glass  imitated  in,  26 
Vinci,  Leonardo  da,  Italian  painter,  architect, 
sculptor  and  musician,  xxi 

Wallace,  Mrs.  Celia  H.,  buys  Tiffany’s 
Chapel  of  the  Crypt,  48,  49  ;  presents  it 
to  Cathedral  of  St.  John  the  Divine  in 
New  York  City,  49 
Walters  Gallery,  Baltimore,  32,  33 


Washington  Square,  New  York,  6 
Water  Colors,  Japanese,  75 
Water  Color  Society,  American,  5,  8,  76 
Whistler,  James  Abbott  McNeill,  American 
painter  and  etcher,  xvii,  xxiii,  34,  47,  75 
“Woodland,”  painting  by  Louis  C.Tiffany,  10 
World’s  Fair,  Chicago,  no  provision  made 
by  managers  of,  for  showing  American 
stained  glass  windows,  21,  25;  Tiffany’s 
Chapel  of  the  Crypt  exhibited  at,  48,  49 

Xenophon,  Greek  historian  and  essayist, 
xxii,  67 

Yale  University,  Louis  C.  Tiffany  receives 
honorary  degree  of  Master  of  Arts  from, 
1 1 

York,  heavy  leads  and  thick,  dark-toned 
panes  in  cathedral  of,  17 
Young,  Harriet  Olivia,  wife  of  Charles  L., 
and  mother  of  Louis  C.  Tiffany,  5 
Yucatan,  decorative  designs  of  temples, 
palaces  and  communal  houses  in,  39 


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